&SU. 


SOME    MEMORIES 


OF 


PARIS 


BY 


F.    ADOLPHUS 


NEW   YORK 

HENRY   HOLT  AND  COMPANY 
1895 


CONTENTS. 


CHAP.  PAGE 

I.   THE   STREETS   FORTY  YEARS   AGO             .                .  I 
II.   2QTH   JANUARY    1853           .                .                .                -39 

III.  TWO   BALLS   AT    THE   HOTEL   DE   VILLE  .                .  42 

IV.  THE   LAST  DAY   OF   THE   EMPIRE                  .                .  58 
V.   THE    ENGLISH   FOOD   GIFTS   AFTER   THE   SIEGE  .  72 

VI.   THE    ENTRY   OF   THE   GERMANS    .                .  113 

VII.   THE   COMMUNE       .....  140 

VIII.  MR  WORTH               .....  178 

IX.    GENERAL    BOULANGER       ....  2OI 

X.   THE   OPERA               .....  226 

XI.   INDOOR   LIFE          .....  265 


1642531 


SOME  MEMORIES  OF  PARIS. 


CHAPTER    I. 

THE  STREETS  FORTY  YEARS  AGO. 

THE  changes  which  have  come  about  during  the 
last  forty  years  in  the  aspect  of  the  streets  of 
Paris  have  been  vastly  more  marked  than  those 
which  have  occurred  in  London  within  the  same 
period.  The  two  main  reasons  of  the  difference 
are:  firstly,  that  London  set  to  work  to  modify 
its  ways  at  a  much  earlier  date  than  Paris,  and 
that  Paris  still  retained,  at  the  commencement 
of  the  fifties,  many  remainders  of  ancient  sights 
and  customs,  and  still  presented  many  character- 
istics of  past  days,  which,  on  this  side  of  the 
Channel,  had  faded  out  long  before;  secondly, 
that,  when  transformation  did  at  last  begin  in 
Paris,  it  was  far  more  sudden  and  violent,  far 
A 


2  SOME    MEMORIES    OF    PARIS. 

more  universal  and  radical,  than  the  mild  grad- 
ual variations  we  have  introduced  in  London, 
and  that,  in  consequence  of  the  utterness  of  that 
transformation,  an  entire  city  was  virtually 
swept  away  and  a  new  one  put  in  its  place. 
The  Paris  of  the  First  Empire  was  still  visible 
in  1850,  almost  unaltered  in  its  essential  fea- 
tures ;  old  houses,  old  roadways,  old  vehicles,  old 
cheapnesses,  old  particularities  of  all  sorts,  had 
been  faithfully  preserved,  and  struck  both  the 
eye  and  the  pocket  of  the  new-comer  as  signs  of 
another  epoch.  It  was  not  till  Haussmann 
began,  in  1854,  the  reconstruction,  not  only  of 
so  many  of  the  buildings  of  Paris,  but — what 
was  far  more  grave  —  of  its  conditions,  and 
practices,  and  order  of  existence,  that  the  relics 
of  former  life,  former  manners,  and  former  econ- 
omies found  themselves  successively  crushed 
out,  and  that  the  brilliant  extravagant  Paris  of 
Napoleon  III.  was  evolved  from  the  ruins. 

At  the  commencement  of  the  Second  Empire 
Paris  was  still  a  city  of  many  mean  streets  and 
a  few  grand  ones  ;  still  a  city  of  rare  pavements, 
rough  stones,  stagnant  gutters,  and  scarcely  any 
drainage;  still  a  city  of  uncomfortable  homes, 
of  varied  smells,  of  relatively  simple  life,  and  of 
dose  intermixture  of  classes.  This  last  element 


THE  STREETS  FORTY  YEARS  AGO.       3 

— the  intermixture  of  classes — exercised  partic- 
ular influence  on  the  look  of  the  streets  as  well 
as  on  the  home  contacts  of  the  inhabitants,  and 
needs  to  be  borne  always  in  mind  in  endeavour- 
ing to  reconstitute  the  former  aspects  of  the 
place.  Of  course  there  were,  in  those  days  as 
always,  certain  quarters  of  the  town  which  were 
tenanted  exclusively  by  the  poor ;  but  the  great 
feature  was  that  the  poor  were  not  restricted  to 
those  special  quarters ;  they  lodged  everywhere 
else  as  well,  wherever  they  found  themselves  in 
proximity  to  their  work,  in  the  most  aristocratic 
as  in  the  lowest  districts.  In  almost  every 
house  in  the  fashionable  parts  of  Paris  the  suc- 
cessive floors  were  inhabited  by  a  regular  grada- 
tion of  classes  from  the  bottom  to  the  top  ;  over 
the  rich  people  on  the  first  and  second  floors 
were  clerks  and  tradespeople  en  chambre  on  the 
third  and  fourth,  and  workmen  of  all  sorts  on 
the  fifth  and  sixth.  Thorough  mingling  or' 
ranks  under  the  same  roof  was  the  rule  of  life : 
all  the  lodgers  used  the  same  stairs  (in  those 
days  back  staircases  scarcely  existed) ;  all 
tramped  up  and  down  amidst  the  careless 
spillings  and  droppings  of  the  less  clean  portion 
of  the  inmates.  The  most  finished  of  the 
women  of  the  period  thought  it  natural  to  use 


4  SOME    MEMORIES   OF    PARIS. 

the  same  flight  as  the  dirty  children  from  above 
them ;  a  lady  going  out  to  dinner  in  white  silk 
did  not  feel  shocked  at  meeting  a  mason  in 
white  calico  coming  in ;  nodding  acquaintances 
between  fellow-lodgers  were  formed  when  time 
had  taught  them  each  other's  faces.  The  effect 
of  this  amalgamation  in  the  houses  stretched 
out  naturally  into  the  streets,  where,  in  conse- 
quence of  the  nearness  of  their  homes,  the 
various  strata  of  the  population  of  each  quarter 
were  thrown  together  far  more  promiscuously 
than  they  are  now.  The  workers  have  no  place 
in  the  new  houses,  which  are  built  for  the  rich 
alone ;  they  have  been  driven  to  the  outskirts, 
instead  of  being  spread,  more  or  less,  over  the 
whole  town :  the  classes  and  the  masses  live 
now  entirely  apart,  in  districts  remote  from 
each  other,  and  the  growing  hate  of  the  masses 
for  the  classes  has  been  considerably  stimulated 
by  the  separation.  A  totally  altered  social 
relationship,  a  far  less  friendly  attitude  and 
feeling  between  the  top  and  the  bottom,  has 
resulted  from  the  expulsion  of  so  many  of  the 
poor  from  their  old  homes. 

The  good  streets  of  Paris  forty  years  ago 
were  therefore  far  more  generally  representative 
than  they  are  to-day.  They  exhibited  the 


THE  STREETS  FORTY  YEARS  AGO.      5 

various  components  of  the  community  with 
more  abundance,  more  accuracy,  and  a  truer 
average;  universal  blending  was  their  normal 
condition.  The  stranger  learnt  more  from 
them  in  a  day  about  types  and  categories  than 
he  can  now  learn  in  a  week,  for  in  the  present 
state  of  things  there  are,  in  one  direction, 
regions  where  a  cloth  coat  is  never  beheld,  and, 
•  in  another,  districts  where  a  blouse  is  almost 
unknown.  And  when  to  this  former  medley  of 
persons  and  castes  we  add  the  notable  differ- 
ences of  dress,  of  bearing,  of  occupations  of  the 
passers-by  from  those  which  prevail  in  the  rich 
quarters  now,  the  contrast  of  general  effect  may 
easily  be  imagined.  Forty  years  are  but  an  in- 
stant in  the  history  of  a  nation,  and  yet  the  last 
forty  years  have  sufficed  to  produce,  an  organic 
change  in  the  appearance  of  the  streets  of  Paris. 
The  change  extends  to  everything — to  the 
houses,  the  shops,  the  public  and  private  car- 
riages, the  soldiers,  the  policemen,  the  hawkers' 
barrows,  and  the  aspect  of  the  men  and  women. 
Nearly  everything  has  grown  smarter,  but  every- 
thing without  exception  has  grown  dearer. 
Whether  the  former  compensates  for  the  latter 
is  a  question  which  every  one  must  decide  for 
himself  according  to  his  personal  view. 


6  SOME    MEMORIES    OF    PARIS. 

The  shops  were  of  course  inferior  to  what 
they  are  now.  The  show  in  the  windows — 
the  montre,  as  the  French  call  it — was  less  bril- 
liant and  less  tempting.  They  were,  however, 
the  prettiest  of  their  time  in  Europe ;  and  all 
that  they  have  done  since  has  been  to  march 
onward  with  the  century,  and,  amidst  the  gen- 
eral progress  of  the  world,  to  keep  the  front 
place  they  held  before.  Stores,  in  the  English 
sense,  have  never  become  acclimatised  in  Paris 
(though  several  attempts  have  been  made  to 
introduce  them),  mainly  because  the  cooks 
refuse  to  purchase  food  in  places  where  they 
can  get  no  commission  for  themselves ;  but  the 
growth  of  the  Bon  Marche  and  the  Louvre, 
which  has  been  entirely  effected  within  the 
last  forty  years,  supplies  evidence  enough  that 
in  Paris,  as  in  London,  the  tendency  of  the 
period — outside  the  cooks — is  towards  compre- 
hensive establishments,  where  objects  of  many 
natures  can  be  found  at  low  prices  under  the 
same  roof.  Potin,  the  universal  grocer,  sup- 
plies even  an  example  of  success  in  spite  of  the 
cooks.  Yet,  notwithstanding  the  competition 
of  the  new  menageries  of  goods,  most  of  the 
shop  windows  on  the  Boulevards  and  in  the 
Rue  de  la  Paix  seem  to  indicate  that  the  com- 


THE  STREETS  FORTY  YEARS  AGO.       7 

merce  inside  is  still  prosperous.  Certain  sorts 
of  shops  have,  it  is  true,  entirely,  or  almost 
entirely,  disappeared,  partly  from  the  general 
change  of  ways  of  life,  partly  from  the  absorp- 
tion of  their  business  by  larger  traders.  For 
instance,  I  believe  I  am  correct  in  saying  that 
there  is  not  now  one  single  glove-shop  left  in 
Paris  (I  mean  a  shop  in  which  gloves  alone 
are  kept,  as  used  to  be  the  case  in  former  times). 
The  high-class  special  dealers  in  lace,  in  cache- 
mire  shawls,  in  silks,  have  melted  away.  At 
the  other  end  of  the  scale  the  herboristes,  who 
sold  medicinal  herbs,  have  vanished  too ;  the 
rotisseurs,  who  had  blazing  fires  behind  their 
windows,  and  supplied  roast  chickens  off  the 
spit,  have  abandoned  business ;  even  the  hot- 
chestnut  dealer  of  the  winter  nights  is  rarely 
to  be  discovered  now.  Specialities,  excepting 
jewellery,  are  ceasing  to  be  able  to  hold  their 
own ;  emporiums  are  choking  them.  Measur- 
ing the  old  shops  all  round — in  showiness,  in 
variety  of  articles,  in  extent  of  business — they 
were  incontestably  inferior  to  those  of  to-day, 
though  not  more  so  than  in  any  other  capital. 

The  look  of  the  private  carriages  was  also 
far  less  bright.  They  were  less  well  turned 
out ;  the  horses  were  heavier  ;  the  servants  were 


8  SOME    MEMORIES   OF   PARIS. 

often  badly  dressed ;  the  driving  was,  if  possible, 
more  careless.  French  carriages  (like  French 
plates  and  knives)  have  always  been  more  lightly 
made  than  those  of  England,  and  at  that  time 
the  difference  was  more  marked,  because  Eng- 
lish carriages  were  more  massive  than  now. 
The  omnibuses  and  cabs  were  dirty  and  un- 
comfortable ;  ancient  shapes  still  existed,  and, 
certainly,  they  did  not  aid  to  adorn  the  streets. 

In  general  terms  it  may  be  said  that,  in  Paris, 
as  everywhere  else — but  more  perhaps  in  Paris 
than  elsewhere — there  was,  in  comparison  with 
to-day,  less  smartness,  less  alertness,  less  hurry, 
and  of  course  less  movement,  for  the  population 
was  much  smaller,  and  the  city  was  still  limited 
by  the  octroi  wall.  The  relative  absence  of  bustle 
produced,  however,  no  dulness  :  the  streets  were 
not  so  noisy,  not  so  crowded,  not  so  business- 
like as  they  have  become  since ;  but  I  think  it 
is  quite  true  to  say  that  they  were  as  bright. 

The  brightness  came  from  one  special  cause, 
from  a  spring  of  action  proper  to  the  time, 
which  produced  an  aspect  unlike  that  of  other 
days.  The  great  peculiarity,  the  striking  mark 
and  badge,  which  distinguished  the  streets  of 
then  from  the  streets  of  now,  were  supplied  by 
a  something  which  was  nationally  proper  to  the 


THE  STREETS  FORTY  YEARS  AGO.       Q 

France  of  the  period,  by  a  something  which  none 
of  us  will  see  at  work  again  in  the  same  form — 
by  the  type  of  the  Paris  women  of  the  time. 

The  question  of  the  influence  of  women  on 
the  aspect  of  out-of-door  life  has  always  oc- 
cupied the  attention  of  travellers.  I  have 
discussed  it — and,  especially,  the  comparative 
attractiveness  of  European  women  of  different 
races  and  epochs — with  many  cosmopolitan  ob- 
servers, including  old  diplomatists  from  various 
lands,  who,  as  a  class,  are  experienced  artistes 
en  femmes  and  profound  students  of  "  the  eter- 
nal feminine,"  and  I  have  found  a  concordancy 
of  opinion  on  two  points :  one,  that  the  women 
of  Paris  have  always  stood  first  as  regards 
open-air  effect  (the  Viennese  are  generally  put 
second,  though  lengths  behind) ;  the  other,  that 
at  no  time  within  living  memory  have  they  con- 
tributed so  largely,  so  exclusively  indeed,  to  that 
effect  as  they  did  half  a  century  ago.  Their 
performance  indoors  is  not  included  in  the 
present  matter ;  it  is  not  their  talk  but  their 
walk,  not  their  home  manner  but  their  outdoor 
maintien,  not  their  social  action  in  private  but 
their  physical  effect  in  public,  that  concern  us 
here.  Their  indoor  life  is  dealt  with  elsewhere. 

The  results,    to   the    eye    of   the    passer-by, 


IO  SOME    MEMORIES    OF    PARIS. 

were  admirable ;  and  so  were  the  processes  by 
which  the  results  were  reached.  The  period  of 
Louis  Philippe  had  been  essentially  honest  and 
respectable ;  it  had  discouraged  vanities  and 
follies ;  it  had  encouraged  moderation  and  pru- 
dence ;  it  had  reacted  on  the  whole  organisation 
of  the  life  of  the  time,  and,  amongst  other 
things,  on  women's  dress.  It  was  a  season 
of  economy,  of  frank  acceptance  of  the  fruits 
of  small  money,  and  of  an  astonishing  handiness 
in  making  the  most  out  of  little.  When  we 
look  back  (with  the  ideas  of  to-day)  to  the  con- 
ditions of  expenditure  which  prevailed  then,  it 
is  difficult  to  believe  that,  with  such  limited 
resources,  the  woman  of  the  time  can  have  won 
such  a  place  in  the  admiration  of  the  world. 
I  am  certainly  not  far  wrong  in  affirming  that 
the  majority  of  the  women  of  the  upper  classes 
who  ambled  about  the  streets  in  those  days  had 
not  spent  ten  pounds  each  on  their  entire  toilette 
(excepting,  of  course,  the  cachemire  shawl,  when 
there  was  one).  The  tendency  of  the  epoch 
was  towards  extreme  refinement,  but  towards 
equally  extreme  simplicity  as  the  basis  of  the 
refinement.  There  was  no  parade  of  stuffs,  or 
of  colours,  or  of  famous  ;  there  was  scarcely  any 
costly  material;  but  there  was  a  perfume  of 


THE  STREETS  FORTY  YEARS  AGO.      II 

high-breeding  and  a  daintiness  of  small  niceties 
that  were  most  satisfying  to  the  critical  beholder. 
Finish  not  flourish,  distinction  not  display,  grace 
not  glitter,  were  the  aims  pursued.  The  great 
ambition — indeed,  the  one  ambition — was  to  be 
comme  il  faut;  that  phrase  expressed  the  per- 
fection of  feminine  possibilities  as  the  generation 
understood  them.  And  they  were  comme  il 
faut!  Never  has  delicate  femininity  reached 
such  a  height,  never  has  the  ideal  "lady"  been 
so  consummately  achieved.  That  ideal  (by  its 
nature  purely  conventional)  has  never  been 
either  conceived  or  worked  out  identically  in  all 
countries  simultaneously ;  local  variety  has  al- 
ways existed ;  the  Russian  lady,  the  German 
lady,  the  English  lady,  the  French  lady — I 
mean,  of  course,  women  of  social  position — 
have  never  been  precisely  like  each  other :  the 
differences  are  diminishing  with  facilities  of 
communication  and  more  frequent  contacts,  but 
they  still  exist  perceptibly,  and  half  a  century 
ago  were  clearly  marked.  The  French  lady  of 
the  time  was  most  distinctly  herself,  not  the 
same  as  the  contemporaneous  lady  of  other 
lands,  and  the  feeling  of  the  judges  to  whom 
I  have  already  referred  was  that,  out  of  doors, 
she  beat  them  all.  I  personally  remember  her 


12  SOME    MEMORIES    OF    PARIS. 

(I  was  young  then,  and  probably  somewhat 
enthusiastic)  as  a  dream  of  charm,  and  feminine 
beyond  anything  I  have  seen  or  heard  of  since. 

Conceive  the  effect  she  produced  in  the 
streets !  Conceive  the  sensation  of  strolling  in 
a  crowd  in  which  every  woman  had  done  her 
utmost  to  be  comme  il  faut;  in  which,  as  a  nat- 
ural result,  a  good  many  looked  "  born " ;  in 
which  a  fair  minority  might  have  carried  on 
their  persons  the  famous  lines  inscribed  on  one 
of  the  arabesqued  walls  of  the  Alhambra,  "  Look 
at  my  elegance ;  thou  wilt  reap  from  it  the 
benefit  of  a  commentary  on  decoration  "  !  The 
fashions  of  the  time  aided  in  the  production  of 
the  effect  sought  for;  they  were  quiet,  simple, 
subdued ;  and  they  were  so  because  the  women 
who  adopted  them  had  the  good  sense  to  take 
calm,  simplicity,  sobriety  for  their  rules. 

Alas !  the  expression  comme  il  faut  has  dis- 
appeared from  the  French  language,  just  as  the 
type  and  the  ideas  of  which  I  have  been  speak- 
ing have  disappeared  from  French  life.  Some- 
thing very  different  is  wanted  now.  None  but 
old  people  know  the  ancient  meaning  of  comme  il 
faut ;  if  the  young  ones  were  acquainted  with  it 
they  would  scorn  it.  As  the  '  Figaro  '  observed 
some  years  ago,  "la  femme  comme  il  faut  est 


THE  STREETS  FORTY  YEARS  AGO.      13 

remplacee  par  la  femme  comme  il  en  faut." 
When  the  streets  were  peopled  by  the  "femme 
comme  il  faut,"  it  was  a  privilege  and  a  lesson 
to  walk  in  them. 

And  yet,  if  she  could  be  called  to  life  again, 
the  streets  of  to-day  would  laugh  at  her.  Paris 
has  grown  accustomed  to  another  theory  of 
woman,  and  would  have  no  applause  to  offer 
to  a  revival  of  the  past.  The  eye  addicts  itself 
to  what  it  sees  each  day,  mistakes  mere  habit 
for  reasoned  preference,  and  likes  or  dislikes, 
admires  or  contemns,  by  sheer  force  of  contact ; 
but  surely  it  will  be  owned,  even  by  those  who 
are  completely  under  present  influences,  that 
the  principles  of  dress  and  bearing  which  were 
applied  in  Paris  in  the  second  quarter  of  the 
century  had  at  all  events  a  value  which  has  be- 
come rare  since.  Women  attained  charm  with- 
out expense,  but  with  strong  personality,  for  the 
reason  that  they  manufactured  it  for  themselves, 
and  did  not  ask  their  tailor  to  supply  it.  It  was 
a  delicious  pattern  while  it  lasted,  and  while  it 
corresponded  to  the  needs  of  a  time ;  but  the 
time  has  passed,  the  pattern  has  become  anti- 
quated, and,  in  every  way,  Paris  has  lost  largely 
by  the  change. 

Unhappily  there  was  a  fault  in  this  attractive 


14  SOME    MEMORIES    OF    PARIS. 

picture ;  but  as  it  was  a  fault  common  to  all 
Europe  then,  and  was  in  no  way  special  to  the 
French,  it  did  not  strike  the  foreign  spectator 
of  those  days,  because  he  was  accustomed  to  it 
everywhere.  The  fault  was  that  it  was  the 
fashion  to  look  insipid !  The  portraits  of  the 
period  testify  amply  to  the  fact,  for  they  depict 
the  most  expressionless  generation  that  ever  had 
itself  painted.  Both  ringlets  and  flat  bandeaux 
lent  their  aid  successively  to  the  fabrication  of 
the  air  of  weakness.  The  Parisienne,  with  all 
her  natural  vivacity,  could  not  escape  from  the 
universal  taint :  in  comparison  with  what  she 
has  been  at  other  times  and  is  to-day,  there  was 
about  her  a  feebleness  of  physiognomy,  a  sup- 
pression of  animation,  and  even,  in  certain 
highly  developed  cases,  an  intentional  assump- 
tion of  languid  vacancy.  But  at  that  time  no 
one  perceived  this ;  we  were  all  (men  as  well 
as  women)  determined  to  give  ourselves  an 
appearance  of  impassiveness,  because  we  re- 
garded it  as  one  of  the  essential  foundations 
of  the  comme  ilfaut.  We  see  now  how  fatuous 
we  looked  then;  but  at  the  moment  we  were 
blind  to  our  own  weakness,  and  simply  beheld 
in  placidity  of  movements  and  of  countenance 
an  indispensable  adjunct  of  distinction. 


THE  STREETS  FORTY  YEARS  AGO.     15 

And  yet,  with  all  this  putting  on  of  a  puerility 
that  did  not  belong  to  them,  and  was  in  utter 
contradiction  to  their  nature,  I  repeat  that  those 
women  stood  entirely  apart.  Not  only  had  they 
admirable  finish  of  detail  in  everything  that 
composed  them,  but  they  possessed,  further- 
more, what  they  called  la  maniere  de  s'en  servir. 
Their  handling  of  themselves  was  most  inter- 
esting to  study.  What  a  spectacle  it  was,  for 
instance,  to  see  one  of  them  come  out  on  a 
damp  day,  stop  for  half  a  minute  beneath  the 
doorway  while  she  picked  up  her  skirts  in  little 
gathers  in  her  left  hand,  draw  the  bottom  tight 
against  the  right  ankle,  and  start  off,  lifting  the 
pleats  airily  beside  her !  Both  the  dexterity  of 
the  folding  and  the  lightness  of  the  holding 
were  wonderful  to  contemplate :  no  sight  in  the 
streets  was  so  intensely  Parisian  as  that  one. 
I  imagine  that,  at  this  present  date,  there  is 
not  a  woman  in  the  place  who  could  do  it. 
The  science  is  forgotten.  The  putting  on  of 
the  shawl  or  mantle  was  another  work  of  art, 
so  skilfully  was  it  tightened  in  so  as  to  narrow 
and  slope  down  the  shoulders,  as  was  the  fashion 
then. 

And  if  the  higher  strata  contributed  in  this 
degree  to  the  formation  of  the  outdoor  picture, 


l6  SOME    MEMORIES    OF    PARIS. 

almost  as  much  must  be  said  of  the  share  of 
adornment  of  the  streets  which  was  furnished 
by  many  of  the  women  of  the  lower  classes, 
especially  by  what  still  remained  of  that  de- 
lightful model,  the  grisette.  The  grisette  was 
dying  out  at  the  beginning  of  the  Second  Em- 
pire, but  bright  examples  of  her  still  survived, 
and  it  was  impossible  to  look  at  them  without 
keen  appreciation  of  their  strange  attractiveness. 
It  must  be  remembered  that  the  grisette  con- 
stituted a  type,  not  a  class ;  she  was  a  grisette 
because  of  what  she  looked  like,  not  because 
of  what  she  was.  She  was  rather  generally 
well-behaved,  and  always  hard-working.  She 
was  a  shop-assistant,  a  maker  of  artificial  flowers, 
a  sempstress  of  a  hundred  sorts,  but  it  was  not 
her  occupation  that  made  her  a  grisette;  she 
became  one  solely  by  the  clothes  she  chose  to 
put  on,  and  by  the  allure  she  chose  to  give  her- 
self. The  grisette  of  Louis  Philippe's  time 
(which  was  the  epoch  of  her  full  expansion) 
wore  in  the  summer — the  true  season  to  judge 
her — a  short  cotton  or  muslin  dress,  always 
newly  ironed,  fresh,  and  crisp ;  a  silk  apron ; 
a  muslin  fichu;  a  white  lace  cap  trimmed  with 
a  quantity  of  flowers  ;  delicate  shoes  and  stock- 
ings (buttoned  boots  for  women  were  just  in- 


THE  STREETS  FORTY  YEARS  AGO.     17 

vented,  but  the  grisette  would  have  thought 
herself  disgraced  for  ever  if  she  had  come  out 
either  in  boots  or  a  bonnet) ;  and  on  Sundays 
straw  kid  gloves  with  the  one  button  of  the 
period.  With  her  sprightly  step,  the  buoyant 
carriage  of  her  head,  her  usually  slight  figure 
and  pretty  feet,  she  lighted  up  the  streets  like 
sunshine,  and  spread  around  her  an  atmosphere 
of  brightness.  She  had  even — in  certain  cases 
at  all  events — a  distinction  of  her  own,  which 
was  curious  and  interesting  to  observe.  She, 
too,  did  her  little  best  to  be  comme  il  faut,  for 
that  was  the  rule  of  the  time,  and  really,  in 
a  sort  of  a  way,  she  sometimes  got  very  near 
it.  Of  course,  the  girls  who  composed  the 
class  of  grisettes  were  unequal  in  their  capacities 
and  in  the  results  they  achieved.  Some  grew 
almost  ladylike  (though  always  with  a  slight 
savour  of  what,  in  Spain,  is  so  expressively 
called  "  salt "),  while  others  never  lost  the  look 
and  manners  of  their  origin.  But  all  resisted, 
with  fair  success,  the  influence  of  surround- 
ing insipidity,  and  maintained,  I  think  I  may 
say  alone,  amidst  the  universal  assumption  of 
apathy,  the  sparkle  proper  to  the  Gallic  race. 
Alas !  the  Haussmannising  of  Paris  gave  the 
last  push  to  the  fall  of  the  grisette.  She  van- 
B 


15  SOME    MEMORIES   OF    PARIS. 

ished  with  the  narrow  streets,  the  paving-stones, 
and  the  cheapnesses  that  had  made  her  possible, 
and  though  she  lingered  for  a  while,  under 
other  names,  in  some  of  the  provincial  towns 
(especially  in  Bordeaux,  where  I  saw  white 
caps  and  flowers  as  late  as  1858),  no  more 
was  perceived  of  her  in  Paris.  The  damage 
done  to  the  streets  by  her  disappearance  was 
irremediable :  they  are  almost  more  changed  by 
it  than  by  all  else  together. 

Of  the  men  of  the  time  I  have  nothing  to  say, 
except  that  most  of  them  simpered  and  thought 
themselves  delightful. 

The  first  place  was  taken  by  the  women,  so  I 
have  put  them  first.  The  second  place  in  the 
effect  of  the  streets  belonged,  I  think,  to  the 
itinerant  traders  of  the  moment,  most  of  whom 
have  faded  out  of  being. 

The  twenty  thousand  men  who  lived  by  keep- 
ing the  inhabitants  supplied  with  water  were 
certainly  the  most  practically  useful  of  all  the 
vanished  workers  of  that  time,  and  they  were 
omnipresent,  for  their  casks  and  buckets  formed 
an  element  of  the  view  in  every  street.  Water 
was  not  laid  on  into  the  houses ;  it  was  carried 
up  each  day  to  every  flat,  even  to  the  sixth  floor, 
when  there  was  one,  by  a  member  of  the  corpor- 


THE  STREETS  FORTY  YEARS  AGO.      IQ 

ation  of  the  porteurs  d'eau.  Dressed  invariably 
in  dark-green  or  blue  velveteen,  they  tramped 
heavily  and  slowly  up  the  staircases,  with  a 
load,  carried  from  a  shoulder  bar,  of  two  great 
metal  pails  full  to  the  brim.  Worthy  fellows 
they  generally  were,  strong  as  buffaloes,  plod- 
ding on  an  unending  treadmill.  I  often  asked 
myself  whether  they  ever  thought.  In  the 
streets  their  casks  on  wheels  (hand-dragged) 
stood  at  every  door,  and  children  used  to  watch 
with  delight  the  perfect  unbroken  roundness 
of  the  arched  stream  of  water  which,  when 
the  plug  was  drawn,  rushed  out  of  the  cask, 
through  a  brass -lined  hole,  into  the  bucket 
which  stood  below  it  in  the  roadway.  The 
stream  was  exactly  like  a  curved  staff  of  glass, 
and  so  absolutely  smooth  that  it  seemed  motion- 
less. The  porteurs  d'eau  have  gone,  like  the 
grisettes;  they  have  been  replaced  by  pipes. 
But  while  they  still  existed,  while  the  question 
of  what  was  to  become  of  them  if  their  work 
was  suppressed  was  being  discussed,  the  popula- 
tion almost  took  their  side,  and,  from  habit, 
appeared  to  prefer  the  old  buckets  to  the  new 
pipes.  Those  water  -  carriers  had  existed  for 
centuries ;  they  were  a  component  part  of  the 
life  of  Paris ;  it  seemed  both  cruel  and  ungrate- 


20  SOME  MEMORIES  OF  PARIS. 

ful  to  take  their  bread  away,  for  the  sake  of 
a  so-called  progress  which  very  few  persons 
understood,  and  of  which  nobody  felt  the  need ; 
so  the  philanthropic  cried  out  against  the 
change.  I  remember  being  asked  to  go  to  a 
meeting  of  protestation  got  up  by  a  lady,  who 
canvassed  all  her  friends.  But  the  buckets 
were  eradicated  all  the  same,  only  the  extinc- 
tion was  effected  gradually;  the  men  found 
other  work,  and  when  the  community  became, 
at  last,  acquainted  with  the  advantages  of 
"  constant  supply,"  it  ceased,  thanklessly,  to 
mourn  over  the  giants  in  velveteen,  and  won- 
dered, indeed,  how  it  could  ever  have  endured 
them. 

The  chiffonniers,  again,  have  lost  their  trade — 
at  least  it  has  become  so  totally  modified  that 
they  no  longer  pursue  it  in  its  ancient  form. 
The  waste  and  dirt  from  every  house  used  to 
be  poured  out  into  the  street,  before  the  front 
door,  each  evening  at  nine  or  ten  o'clock,  and 
the  chiffonnier,  with  his  lantern  and  his  hook 
in  his  hands  and  his  basket  on  his  back,  arrived 
at  once  and  raked  the  heaps  over,  to  see  what 
he  could  find  in  them.  But  it  became  forbidden 
either  to  throw  the  refuse  into  the  street  or 
to  bring  it  out  at  night.  It  was  prescribed 


THE  STREETS  FORTY  YEARS  AGO.     21 

that  it  should  be  carried  down  in  the  early 
morning  in  a  box,  which  is  placed,  full,  at 
the  door,  and  is  emptied  before  nine  o'clock  into 
the  dust-carts  which  go  round  each  day.  The 
chiffonniers,  therefore,  have  no  longer  the  oppor- 
tunity of  picking  over  the  dirt,  for  it  has  ceased 
to  offer  itself  in  an  accessible  form :  they  have, 
for  the  most  part,  to  carry  on  their  trade  after 
the  refuse  is  discharged  from  the  carts  at  the 
depots,  and,  consequently,  have  almost  dis- 
appeared from  the  streets.  They  cannot  be 
regarded  as  a  loss,  for  they  were,  of  necessity, 
dirty  and  bad  smelling,  and  looked,  as  they 
prowled  about  with  their  dull  lantern  in  the 
dark,  like  spectres  of  miserable  evilness.  But, 
all  the  same,  they  were  thoroughly  typical  of 
old  Paris. 

There  were  in  those  days  a  quantity  of  vagrant 
traders  about  the  streets,  charlatans,  marchands 
ambulants,  and  faiseurs  de  tours ;  the  police  were 
merciful  to  them,  and  allowed  them  to  carry 
on  their  business  almost  in  liberty.  Two  of 
them  were  celebrated :  an  open-air  dentist 
whose  name  I  have  forgotten,  and  Mangin — 
"1'illustre  Mangin,"  as  he  called  himself — the 
pencil-seller.  All  Paris  knew  those  two. 

The  dentist  drove   about    in    a   four-wheeled 


22  SOME    MEMORIES    OF    PARIS. 

cart  of  gorgeous  colours,  with  a  platform  in 
front  on  which  operations  were  performed. 
Immediately  behind  the  platform  were  an  organ 
and  a  drum,  which  instruments  were  played, 
together  or  separately,  by  a  boy,  and  always 
irrespectively  of  each  other.  Their  use  was 
to  drown  the  yells  of  the  patients.  I  saw  that 
dentist  frequently  at  the  entrance  of  the  Avenue 
Gabriel  in  the  Champs  Elysees ;  but  although 
there  was  invariably  an  excited  crowd  listen- 
ing to  his  eloquence  and  contemplating  his 
surgery,  I  never  felt  tempted  to  stop  to  hear 
or  watch  him,  because,  with  the  disposition  to 
neglect  opportunities  which  is  proper  to  youth, 
I  failed  to  see  the  amusement  of  staring  at 
people  having  their  teeth  drawn  in  public.  I 
am  sorry  now  that  I  was  so  fastidious,  for  I 
missed  a  curious  spectacle,  and  am  unable  to 
describe  it  here.  The  show  was  evidently  at- 
tractive to  a  portion  of  the  mob,  for  there  were, 
each  time  I  passed,  many  rows  of  people  ap- 
plauding the  dentist  when  he  declared  (in 
flowery  words,  I  was  assured)  that  he  never 
hurt  any  one,  and  applauding  his  victims  still 
more  when  they  shrieked.  I  think  he  charged 
five  sous  (twopence-halfpenny)  for  dragging  out 
a  tooth ;  which  proves  that,  as  I  have  already 


THE  STREETS  FORTY  YEARS  AGO.      23 

observed,  prices  were  lower  in  those  days  than 
they  are  now. 

But  if  I  shunned  the  dentist  I  never  missed 
a  chance  of  listening  to  Mangin,  who  really  was 
a  prodigious  fellow.  It  was  said  that  he  had 
taken  a  university  degree,  and  the  varied  know- 
ledge which  he  scattered  about  in  his  unceasing 
speeches  gave  probability  to  the  rumour.  Any- 
how, whatever  had  been  his  education,  his  out- 
pour of  strange  argument,  his  originality  and 
facility,  his  spirit  of  a  propos,  his  rapidity  of 
utterance,  and,  above  all,  the  perpetual  new- 
ness of  his  fancies,  were  positively  startling. 
Of  course  his  talk  was  often  vulgar ;  but  it 
must  be  remembered  that  it  was  addressed  to 
a  street  mob,  most  of  whose  members  loved 
coarseness.  Like  the  dentist,  he  paraded  about 
the  town  in  a  cart,  but  his  vehicle  was  dark, 
and  had  a  high  back.  Also,  like  the  dentist, 
he  had  an  organ  and  a  drum,  but  they  were 
only  used  in  the  intervals  of  his  discourses. 
He  had  a  day  and  an  hour  for  each  quarter 
of  the  town,  and  was  always  awaited  by  an 
eager  crowd.  The  spot  where  I  habitually 
saw  him  was  in  the  roadway  by  the  side  of 
the  Madeleine.  He  was  then  a  man  of  about 
forty-five,  with  a  great  brown  beard,  pleasant- 


24  SOME    MEMORIES    OF    PARIS. 

looking,  thick.  He  wore  a  huge  brass  helmet, 
with  immense  black  feathers,  and  a  scarlet 
cloak,  which  he  called  his  toga.  His  unhesi- 
tating command  of  words,  his  riotous  fertility 
of  subjects  and  ideas,  were  such  that,  though 
I  listened  to  him  frequently,  I  never  heard 
him  make  the  same  observation  twice.  He  did 
assert  continually  that  he  was  a  descendant  of 
Achilles,  and  that  he  wore  that  gentleman's 
uniform,  but  that  declaration  formed  no  real 
part  of  his  speeches ;  it  was  a  mere  official 
indication,  and  had  in  it  none  of  the  character 
of  an  argument.  I  think  I  may  say  that  his 
harangues  were  absolutely  fresh  each  day.  I 
do  not  pretend  to  remember  more  than  a  few 
of  the  phrases  I  have  heard  him  utter,  but  I  can 
give  a  fair  general  idea  of  his  style,  including  some 
of  his  own  words.  Here  is  an  example : — 

Ladies,  gentlemen,  children,  enemies,  and  friends ! 
— Buy  my  pencils.  There  are  no  other  pencils  like 
them  on  earth  or  in  the  spheres.  Listen !  They 
are  black  !  You  imagine,  of  course,  in  the  immen- 
sity of  your  ignorance — it  is  wonderful  how  ignorant 
people  are  capable  of  being,  especially  about  pencils 
— that  all  pencils  are  black.  Error !  Criminal 
error !  Error  as  immense  and  as  fatal  as  that  of 
Mark  Antony  when  he  fell  in  love  with  Cleopatra 


THE  STREETS  FORTY  YEARS  AGO.     25 

All  other  pencils  are  grey !  Mine  alone  possess  the 
merit  of  being  truly  black.  They  are  black,  for 
instance,  as  the  hair  of  Eve.  Here  I  pause  to  ob- 
serve that  it  is  a  general  mistake  to  suppose  that 
Eve  was  a  fair  woman.  She  was  as  dark  as  if  she 
had  been  born  in  the  Sahara,  of  Sicilian  parents. 
I  was  in  the  Garden  of  Eden  with  her,  and  I  ought 
to  know.  I  was,  in  that  stage  of  my  transmigration, 
the  original  canary  bird,  and  looked  at  her  as  I 
flew  about.  I  was  saying  that  my  pencils  are 
black.  Listen !  They  are  black,  not  only  as  the 
hair  of  Eve,  but  black  as  that  hideous  night  after 
the  earthquake  of  Lisbon ;  black  as  the  expression 
of  countenance  of  Alexander  the  Great  (you  are 
aware,  of  course,  that  he  was  an  irritable  person) 
when  he  found  there  was  no  sugar  in  his  coffee ; 
black  as  the  waves  which  gurgled  over  Phaethon 
when  he  fell  headlong  into  the  Po ;  black  as  your 
sweet  complexion  might  be,  my  dear  (to  a  girl  in 
the  crowd),  if  it  did  not  happen  to  be,  on  the  con- 
trary, as  pink  as  my  toga,  as  white  as  my  soul,  as 
trans;^-ent  as  the  truth  of  my  words.  But  black- 
ness— friends,  enemies,  and  children — is  only  one 
of  the  ten  thousand  excellences  of  my  unapproach- 
able pencils.  They  are  also  unbreakable,  absolutely 
unbreakal:'e.  See!  Watch!  I  dash  this  finely  cut 
pencil-point  on  to  this  block  of  massive  steel.  The 
strength  of  my  arm  is  such  (I  inherit  it,  with  other 
classical  peculiarities,  from  my  ancestor,  the  late 
Achilles)  that  I  dent  the  steel ;  but  I  cannot  break 
the  point.  You  smile !  It  wounds  me  that  you 


26  SOME    MEMORIES    OF    PARIS. 

smile,  for  thereby  you  imply  a  doubt,  just  as  Solo- 
mon smiled  while  he  wondered  which  of  the  two 
women  was  the  mother  of  the  baby.  Come  up  and 
verify  the  fact  if  you  do  not  believe.  There  is  the 
mark  on  the  steel ;  there  is  the  pencil-point.  The 
point  is  sharpened,  not  blunted,  by  the  fierceness  of 
the  blow.  One  sou,  five  centimes,  for  a  single 
pencil !  Ten  sous,  fifty  centimes,  for  a  dozen  !  At 
those  prices  I  give  them  away,  out  of  pure  love  of 
humanity.  Ten  sous  a  dozen !  Who  buys  ?  Yes, 
you,  sir?  Yes.  One  dozen,  or  two  dozen,  or  ten 
dozen  ?  Very  good,  two  dozen.  You  see,  my 
children,  that  the  entire  universe  comes  to  buy  my 
pencils.  This  gentleman,  who  has  just  taken  two 
dozen,  has  travelled  straight  from  the  celebrated 
island  of  Jamaica  (where  humming-birds  are  culti- 
vated on  a  vast  scale  in  order  to  distil  from  them 
the  sugar  they  contain)  for  the  express  purpose  of 
obtaining  a  supply.  He  heard  of  them  out  there 
— I  mention  for  the  information  of  such  of  you  as 
may  not  be  acquainted  with  the  geography  of  the 
oceans,  that  Jamaica  is  on  the  coast  of  China,  and 
therefore  very  distant  —  and  he  has  travelled  half- 
way round  the  world  to  come  to  me  to-day.  Don't 
blush,  sir,  at  my  revelation  of  the  grandeur  of  your 
act.  It  is  a  noble  act,  sir ;  well  may  you — and  I— 
be  proud  of  it.  Yes,  my  little  beauty,  two  dozen? 
You,  my  child,  have  not  arrived  by  steamer,  rail- 
way, or  balloon  from  the  celestial  waters  of  Pekin, 
where  the  population  is  born  with  pigtails,  and  feeds 
exclusively  on  its  own  finger-nails,  which  are  grown 


THE  STREETS  FORTY  YEARS  AGO.      27 

very  long  for  the  purpose  —  you  have  arrived  only 
from  the  heights  of  Montmartre ;  but  your  merit  also 
is  great,  for  you  have  faith  in  my  pencils.  Who 
else  has  faith  in  my  pencils  ?  Black,  unbreakable, 
easy  to  cut,  easy  to  suck,  easy  to  pick  your  teeth 
with,  easy  to  put  behind  your  ear,  easy  to  carry  in 
your  pocket,  delightful  to  make  presents  with.  Who 
buys  my  pencils  to  offer  them  to  her  he  loves? 
Yes,  young  man.  Good !  Strike  the  drum,  slave ; 
strike  the  fulminating  drum,  the  very  drum  that  re- 
sounded at  the  taking  of  Troy — it  was  sent  to  the 
relations  of  Achilles  by  Ulysses,  and  has  come  down 
as  an  heirloom  in  the  family — in  honour  of  this 
noble  youth,  this  brilliant  Frenchman,  this  splendid 
subject  of  the  Emperor.  He  offers  my  pencils  to 
her!  I  drink  to  her  I  At  least  I  would  if  I  had 
anything  to  drink.  Ten  sous  for  twelve  of  such 
pencils  as  mine !  It's  absurd !  It  pains  my  heart 
to  sell  them.  I  have  to  tear  myself  away  from  them 
as  the  wild  horses  of  Attila  tore  his  prisoners  to 
pieces.  The  boy  who  does  not  buy  my  pencils  is 
destined  to  a  life  of  misery;  he  will  be  kept  in  on 
Sundays ;  he  will  be  brought  up  principally  on  dry 
bread,  but  butter  and  jam  will  be  danced  goadingly 
before  his  eyes.  When  he  becomes  a  man  he  will 
fail  in  everything  he  attempts,  and  will  suffer  from 
many  hitherto  unknown  diseases.  His  horse,  if  he 
has  one,  will  possess  a  tail  like  a  rolled-up  umbrella, 
and  knees  the  shape  of  seventy- seven.  His  cook 
will  put  hairs  into  his  soup.  As  for  the  girl  who 
does  not  buy  my  pencils,  her  fate  will  be  more 


28  SOME    MEMORIES    OF    PARIS. 

awful  still.  Never  will  she  find  a  husband!  What,  girls  ! 
you  hear  the  fearful  fate  that  awaits  you,  and  you  do 
not  rush  up  instantly  to  buy  ?  Rush,  if  you  wish  to  be 
mothers  !  Rush,  if  you  long  to  be  happy,  beautiful,  and 
rich !  That's  right ;  two,  three,  four,  who  long  to  be 
happy,  beautiful,  and  rich.  The  more  pencils  you 
buy,  the  happier,  the  more  beautiful,  and  the  richer 
you  will  be.  How  many  shall  we  say?  Twenty 
dozen  each  ?  I  make  a  reduction  for  all  quantities 
over  ten  dozen.  What?  One?  One?  One  single 
pencil?  For  one  sou?  And  you  expect  to  be 
happy,  beautiful,  and  rich  for  one  sou?  Even  in 
this  glorious  land  of  France,  even  in  this  country 
of  delights,  that  result  is  impossible,  quite  impossible. 
Take  a  dozen  at  all  events ;  even  then  you  will  only 
be  relatively  happy,  moderately  beautiful,  and  not  at 
all  rich.  Joy,  loveliness,  and  wealth  increase  with 
pencils.  Yes,  sir,  two  dozen.  To  you,  sir,  I  do 
not  promise  handsomeness,  but  I  predict  success, 
especially  with  ladies.  My  pencils  render  men  irre- 
sistible with  women.  Now  that  you  have  them  in 
your  hand,  try  the  effect  on  that  tall  girl  next  to 
you  ;  it  will  be  visible  at  once.  Ten  sous  a  dozen  ! 
Who  buys?  I  pause.  I  take  needed  rest,  but  only 
for  an  instant.  Slave,  sound  the  roaring  drum,  re- 
volve the  handle  of  the  pealing  organ,  in  order  to 
divert  the  admiring  crowd  while  I  repose. 

And  he  proceeded  to  suck  liquorice. 

I   have   given   this   speech   at   some    length, 
because  it  paints  not  only  a  man  but  a  situation. 


THE  STREETS  FORTY  YEARS  AGO.      2Q 

How  utterly  other  from  the  conditions  of  to-day 
must  have  been  the  state  of  the  streets  of  Paris 
when  it  was  possible  to  shout  out  all  that 
twenty  yards  from  the  Boulevard,  and  to  go  on 
shouting  every  day,  without  being  arrested  by 
the  police  as  a  nuisance. 

When  Mangin  disappeared  (his  eclipse  oc- 
curred, so  far  as  I  can  remember,  somewhere 
about  1856)  he  left  vacancy  behind  him.  He 
was,  like  Napoleon,  unreplaceable. 

Another  curious  artist,  of  whom  I  often  heard, 
had  gone  out  of  sight  before  my  time.  He 
painted  portraits  at  fairs  and  in  the  streets,  and 
a  placard  at  the  door  of  his  booth  bore  in  large 
letters  the  inscription  : — 

PORTRAITS  ! 
PORTRAITS  ! 

RESSEMBLANCE  FRAPPANTE  .        .      2  francs. 
RESSEMBLANCE  ORDINAIRE  .        .       i  franc. 
AIR  DE  FAMILLE    .        .        .        .50  centimes. 

It  seems  that  the  air  de  famille  was  the  most 
largely  ordered  of  the  three  degrees  of  likeness, 
and  that  scarcely  anybody  went  to  the  expense 
of  a  ressemblance  frappante.  This  man  made  no 
speeches ;  but  the  wording  of  his  advertisement 
was  worth  much  talking. 


30  SOME    MEMORIES    OF    PARIS. 

One  more  exhibitor  will  I  describe  — a  juggler. 
He  came  every  Tuesday  afternoon  to  the  south- 
east corner  of  the  Place  de  la  Madeleine,  just 
outside  the  shop  where  Flaxland,  the  music- 
dealer,  is  now  established ;  and  there,  in  his 
shirt-sleeves,  he  conjured  and  played  tricks.  I 
remember  only  one  of  his  devices,  but  that  one 
sufficed  to  make  him  a  sight  of  the  time.  He 
asked  the  crowd  for  pennies  (pieces  of  two  sous, 
I  mean) ;  he  put  five  of  them  into  his  right 
hand,  played  with  them,  tossed  them  a  few 
times  in  the  air,  and  then  suddenly  flung  them 
straight  up  to  a  height  which  seemed  above  the 
house-tops.  He  watched  them  intently  as  they 
rose,  and,  as  they  turned  and  began  to  fall,  he 
opened  with  his  left  hand  the  left  pocket  of  his 
waistcoat,  and  held  it  open — about  two  inches, 
I  should  think.  Down  came  the  pennies,  not 
loose  or  separated  from  each  other,  but  in  what 
looked  like  a  compact  mass.  Fixedly  he  gazed 
at  them,  shifting  his  body  slightly,  very  slightly, 
to  keep  right  under  them  (he  scarcely  had  to 
move  his  feet  at  all),  and  crash  came  the  pile 
into  the  pocket  of  his  waistcoat !  He  repeated 
the  operation  with  ten  pennies,  and,  finally, 
he  did  it  with  twenty !  Yes,  positively,  with 
twenty !  It  almost  took  one's  breath  away  to 


THE  STREETS  FORTY  YEARS  AGO.      3! 

hear  the  thud.  Never  did  he  miss — at  least, 
never  did  I  see  him  miss — and  never  did  the 
pennies  break  apart  or  scatter ;  they  stuck  to 
each  other  by  some  strange  attraction,  as  if  they 
had  become  soldered  in  the  air.  There  was 
evidently  something  in  the  manner  of  flinging 
that  made  them  hold  steadily  together.  After 
wondering  each  time  at  the  astounding  skill  of 
the  operation,  I  always  went  on  to  wonder  what 
that  waistcoat  could  be  made  of,  and  what  that 
pocket  could  be  lined  with,  to  enable  them  to 
support  such  blows.  The  force,  the  dexterity, 
and  the  precision  of  the  throwing — to  some 
sixty  feet  high,  so  far  as  I  could  guess — and  the 
unfailing  exactness  of  the  catching,  were  quite 
amazing  :  the  pennies  went  up  and  came  down 
in  an  absolutely  vertical  line.  The  juggler  was 
said  to  have  made  a  good  deal  of  money  by  the 
proceeding ;  people  talked  about  it,  went  to  see 
it,  and  gave  francs  to  him.  He,  too,  had  no 
successor. 

There  were  plenty  of  other  mountebanks  of 
various  sorts  about,  but  they  had  no  widespread 
reputations,  and  did  not  count  as  recognised 
constituents  of  the  street-life  of  the  time.  Man- 
gin,  the  dentist,  and  that  juggler  held  a  place 
amongst  the  public  men  of  their  day — like  Pere 


32  SOME    MEMORIES    OF    PARIS. 

coupe  toujours,  who  had  sold  hot  galette  for  half  a 
century  in  a  stall  next  door  to  the  Gymnase 
Theatre ;  like  the  head-waiter  at  Bignon's  (in 
the  Chaussee  d'Antin  days,  of  course),  whose 
name  I  am  ungrateful  enough  to  have  forgotten  ; 
like  the  superlatively  grand  Suisse  of  that  date 
at  the  Madeleine,  who  was  said  to  have  been 
christened  Oswald,  because  the  washerwoman, 
his  mother,  like  many  others  of  her  generation, 
had  gone  entirely  mad  over  Corinne.  How  long 
ago  all  that  does  seem  !  And  how  utterly  other 
than  the  Paris  of  to-day  ! 

The  Champs  Elysees  too — which  represented 
then  the  concentrated  essence  of  the  life  of  the 
streets — how  changed  they  are  !  Then,  every- 
body went  there  ;  all  classes  sat  or  strolled  there. 
Now,  the  place  is  half  deserted  in  comparison 
with  what  it  was,  although  the  lower  part  was 
then  a  desert  of  dust  or  mud,  according  to  the 
weather,  while  now  it  is  a  real  garden ;  and  the 
upper  portion  was  bordered,  at  many  points,  by 
grass-fields,  in  which  I  have  seen  cows  feeding. 
The  planting  of  the  lower  half  (the  trees  of 
course  were  old)  was  effected  somewhere  about 
1856,  with  the  stock  of  a  Belgian  horticulturist, 
which  was  bought  en  bloc  for  the  purpose.  It 
constituted  one  of  the  most  charming  improve- 


THE  STREETS  FORTY  YEARS  AGO.      33 

ments  of  the  Haussmann  period,  for  it  gave  a 
look  of  delightful  greenness  and  prettiness  to 
what  had  been  a  gravelly  waste.  And  yet,  not- 
withstanding their  beautification,  the  Champs 
Elysees,  as  a  public  resort,  have  not  maintained 
the  comprehensively  representative  character 
they  possessed  forty  years  ago.  They  have 
been  affected  partly  by  the  caprices  of  fashion, 
but,  like  all  the  rest  of  western  Paris,  their  com- 
position and  their  aspect  have  been  altered 
mainly  by  the  almost  total  separation  of  the 
various  strata  of  inhabitants  of  which  I  have 
already  spoken.  It  must  be  remembered  that, 
in  the  days  of  which  I  am  telling,  the  women  of 
the  lower  classes  were,  in  great  part,  ornamental, 
and  that  not  only  were  they  worthy — many  of 
them,  at  all  events — to  take  a  place  in  the  crowd 
which  assembled  every  summer  evening  between 
the  Place  de  la  Concorde  and  the  Rond  Point, 
but  that  their  presence  bestowed  a  special  char- 
acter on  the  effect  of  the  crowd,  for  it  proved 
that  all  the  layers  of  population  had  learnt  to 
mix  naturally  together  in  open-air  union.  The 
mixture  did  not  shock  the  patrician  eye,  and  it 
pleased  the  plebeian  heart ;  it  did  something  to 
soothe  and  satisfy  the  self-respect  and  conscious- 
ness of  rights  of  a  considerable  section  of  the 
c 


34  SOME    MEMORIES   OF    PARIS. 

people,  and  led  them  to  look  with  a  certain 
friendliness  on  the  rich.  In  the  Champs  Elysees 
the  mingling  was  more  complete  even  than  in 
the  streets,  for  the  double  reason  that  it  had 
more  space  to  show  itself,  and  that  the  act  of 
sitting  down  side  by  side,  which  was  impossible 
elsewhere,  seemed  to  bestow  a  certain  intimacy 
on  it.  Aristocracy  lost  nothing ;  democracy 
gained  a  good  deal ;  a  political  effect  of  utility 
was  achieved. 

In  those  days  everything  came  to  pass  in  the 
Champs  Elysees.  Everybody  went  there  to  be- 
hold everybody  else.  All  processions  paraded 
there — so  much  so,  indeed,  that  one  of  the  first 
stories  I  heard  on  my  arrival  in  Paris  was  that, 
when  the  end  of  the  world  was  announced  for 
some  day  in  May  1846,  an  enterprising  speculator 
set  up  trestles  and  planks  under  the  trees,  and 
offered  to  let  out  standing-room,  at  five  sous 
a-head,  "  to  view  the  end  of  the  world  go  by." 
The  certainty  that  everything  was  to  be  seen 
there  —  from  the  funeral  of  the  earth  to  the 
wedding-party  of  an  oyster-girl  going  out  to 
dine  at  a  restaurant  at  Neuilly — was  sufficient 
of  course  to  bring  together  all  the  starers  of 
Paris  (and  there  are  a  good  many  of  them). 
The  true  difference  between  the  starers  of  then 


THE  STREETS  FORTY  YEARS  AGO.     35 

and  the  starers  of  now  is  that  in  those  times  the 
Champs  Elysees  were  regarded,  not  only  as  the 
centre  of  Paris,  but  as  a  spot  to  live  in,  whereas 
now  they  have  become  a  simple  passing  place, 
like  any  other — merely  one  of  the  ways  that  lead 
to  the  Bois.  The  Bois  itself  was  a  tangle  of 
disorder,  with  few  paths  in  it,  and  was  acces- 
sible through  a  sort  of  lane  turning  out  of  the 
present  Avenue  Victor  Hugo,  which  was  then 
a  narrow  road  called,  if  I  remember  right,  the 
Route  de  St  Cloud.  There  was  no  Avenue  du 
Bois  de  Boulogne,  nor  any  other  Avenues  round 
the  Arch  of  Triumph  (except,  of  course,  the 
Avenue  de  Neuilly) ;  the  Champs  Elysees  ex- 
isted alone,  and  gained  naturally  in  importance 
by  their  oneness.  It  was  not  till  the  late  fifties 
that  the  Bois  was  laid  out  as  it  is  now,  and  that 
the  lakes  were  dug.  When  that  was  done  the 
world  began  to  go  out  there,  and  ceased  to  stop 
in  the  Champs  Elysees. 

The  Boulevards,  again,  were  far  more  import- 
ant features  in  the  life  of  the  place  than  they 
are  to-day:  then,  life  was  a  good  deal  concen- 
trated; to-day,  it  is  thoroughly  spread  out.  The 
building  changes  which  have  been  effected  in  the 
Boulevards  have  been  enormous,  but  the  modifi- 
cations in  their  social  aspect  have  been  greater 


36  SOME    MEMORIES    OF    PARIS. 

still.  Very  few  of  the  ancient  landmarks  survive 
in  them ;  but  the  crowd  is  even  more  altered 
than  the  houses.  The  chosen  lounging  spots  are 
not  the  same,  and  even  the  art  of  lounging  has 
itself  assumed  another  character.  An  acquaint- 
ance I  made  on  my  first  visit  to  Paris  proposed 
to  me  seriously  to  teach  me  la  maniere  de  fldner, 
and  spoke  of  it  with  reverence,  as  if  it  were  a 
science  of  difficult  acquirement,  needing  delicate 
attention  and  prolonged  study.  He  told  me  he 
had  passed  his  life  (which  had  been  a  long  one) 
in  the  careful  application  of  the  highest  prin- 
ciples of  lounging,  that  he  had  explored  its 
secrets  in  many  countries,  and  that  he  had 
arrived  at  the  conclusion  that  there  are  only 
two  capitals  where  it  is  carried  to  its  noblest 
possibilities — Madrid  and  Paris.  He  put  Naples 
third,  but  with  the  express  reserve  that  the 
lounging  there  is  simply  animal,  and  has  no 
elevation  in  its  composition.  He  did  admit, 
however,  that  in  Madrid  and  Naples  the  entire 
population  knows  instinctively  how  to  lounge, 
while  in  Paris  the  faculty  is  limited  to  the 
educated.  To-day  it  is  in  Paris  itself  that  the 
lounging  has  lost  "  elevation  " ;  it  has  become 
as  "animal"  as  at  Naples,  but  without  the 
excuse  of  the  sun  which,  there,  bestows  so 


THE  STREETS  FORTY  YEARS  AGO.     37 

much  justification  on  its  animality.  Parisians 
no  longer  lounge  with  the  sublime  contentment 
which  was  so  essentially  characteristic  of  the 
process  forty  years  ago.  In  those  days  the 
mere  fact  of  being  on  the  Boulevard  sufficed 
not  only  to  fill  the  true  flaneur  with  a  soft  re- 
ligious joy,  but  aroused  in  him  a  highly  con- 
scious sentiment  of  responsibility  and  dignity : 
he  seemed,  as  he  strolled  along,  to  be  sacrificing 
to  the  gods.  Alas !  it  is  the  mere  material  act 
of  lounging,  without  adoration  for  the  sacred 
place  where  the  act  is  performed,  which  satisfies 
the  actual  mind.  The  distinction  between  the 
two  conditions,  between  the  "  elevation  "  of  the 
one  and  the  "  animality "  of  the  other,  is  self- 
evident  and  lamentable.  If  my  old  friend  were 
not  dead  already,  the  sight,  assuredly,  would 
kill  him.  He  declared — and  it  was  an  opinion 
generally  held  then — that,  for  a  true  Parisian, 
the  only  portion  of  the  Boulevard  which  was 
really  fit  for  the  due  discharge  of  the  holy  duty 
of  lounging  was  the  little  space  between  the  Rue 
du  Helder  and  the  Rue  Lepelletier,  which,  with 
fond  memories  of  other  days,  he  persisted  in 
calling  by  its  former  momentary  name  of  "  Bou- 
levard de  Gand"  (for  the  reason  that,  during 
the  Hundred  Days,  Louis  XVIII.  ran  away  to 


38  SOME    MEMORIES    OF    PARIS. 

Gand).  The  bottom  of  the  steps  of  Tortoni 
formed  the  hallowed  central  spot.  When  I 
first  saw  Paris,  that  spot  inspired  me,  under 
the  guidance  of  my  old  friend,  with  a  certain 
awe ;  but  I  must  add  that  the  awe  did  not 
last,  and  that  the  more  I  knew  of  the  spot  the 
less  I  revered  it. 

It  has  been  said  of  French  Governments  that 
"  plus  9a  change,  plus  c'est  la  m£me  chose ;  " 
but,  however  true  that  may  be  of  Ministries, 
it  is  absolutely  untrue  of  outdoor  Paris,  which 
has  altered  so  totally  that  it  has  ceased  to  be 
the  same  at  all.  Perhaps  it  might  be  a  good 
thing  for  France  if  the  Government  were  to 
change  as  completely. 


CHAPTER   II. 

2QTH   JANUARY    1853. 

I  WAS  crossing  the  Place  de  la  Concorde, 
thinking  of  nothing,  when  suddenly  I  became 
aware  that  carriages,  accompanied  by  a  small 
crowd,  were  advancing  slowly  towards  me  from 
the  Avenue  Gabriel.  The  marriage  of  Napoleon 
III.  with  Mademoiselle  de  Montijo  was  to  be 
solemnised  that  day  in  the  Cathedral  of  Notre 
Dame.  The  carriages  I  saw  coming  formed  the 
procession  of  the  bride. 

I  placed  myself  at  the  edge  of  the  pavement, 
on  the  west  side  of  the  obelisk,  just  where  the 
guillotine  stood  during  the  Terror,  and  looked. 

Almost  at  a  foot's  pace  the  carriages  drove 
past  me,  two  yards  off.  In  one  of  them,  which 
seemed  to  be  all  glass,  I  caught  sight  of  an 
intensely  pale,  intensely  anxious  face.  I  pre- 
sume there  were  surroundings ;  there  may  have 


40  SOME    MEMORIES   OF    PARIS. 

been  white  satin,  orange  flowers,  jewels ;  there 
may  have  been  other  persons  :  but  I  saw  absol- 
utely nothing — and  was  capable  of  seeing  nothing 
—except  the  absorbing  presence  of  those  dream- 
ily apprehensive  eyes  and  those  pallid  cheeks. 
That  expression  of  vague  heart-sinking  blotted 
out  every  detail  of  attendant  circumstances ; 
it  left  no  room  in  me  for  any  other  perception 
whatever. 

As  I  gazed  the  vision  vanished ;  it  had  en- 
dured for  only  a  dozen  seconds,  and  yet  it  had 
stamped  itself  permanently  inside  my  head ; 
it  has  remained  there,  clear,  sharp,  abiding. 
I  have  seen  that  face  often  since, — in  youth,  in 
age ;  in  pride,  in  pain ;  illumined  by  the  glitter 
of  a  meteoric  throne,  worn  by  disaster,  grief,  and 
exile, — but  never  have  I  looked  at  it  without 
the  accompanying  memory  of  its  almost  spectral 
apparition  to  me  on  2gth  January  1853. 

I  was  told  next  day  (by  enemies  of  the  Empire) 
that  Mademoiselle  de  Montijo  expected  to  be 
assassinated  on  her  way  to  church,  and  that 
the  expression  I  had  observed  was  the  natural 
consequence  of  the  alarm  she  felt.  But  I  pro- 
tested against  that  explanation.  I  felt  instinc- 
tively that  I  had  beheld  something  else  than 
mere  material  fear,  something  other  than  simple 


ft 
2QTH    JANUARY    1853.  4! 

dread  of  the  present.  At  the  moment,  it  is  true, 
I  regarded  the  expression  of  that  face  merely  as 
an  involuntary  testimony  to  the  vanity  of  suc- 
cess ;  I  had  then  no  motive  for  attributing  to  it 
any  other  meaning.  In  later  days,  however,  it 
assumed  to  me  the  very  different  aspect  of  a 
revelation  of  failure.  Looking  back  to  it  now, 
as  it  floated  past  me  forty-two  years  ago,  on  the 
exact  spot  where  Marie  Antoinette  was  executed, 
I  discern  what  I  believe  was  really  in  it — awe 
of  the  future,  augury  of  woe. 

I  have  forgotten  many  other  sights,  but  that 
one  stands  vividly  before  me  in  its  sadness.  To 
me  the  recollection  of  it  means  that,  at  the  very 
moment  when  the  ex-Empress  was  on  her  way 
to  Notre  Dame  to  put  on  a  crown,  I  chanced 
to  see  her  sorrows  foreshadowed  to  her. 


CHAPTER    III 

TWO    BALLS   AT   THE    HOTEL   DE    VILLE. 

UNDER  the  Second  Empire  the  balls  at  the  Hotel 
de  Ville  counted  amongst  the  bright  festivi- 
ties of  Europe.  Sovereigns,  society,  the  many 
foreigners  in  Paris,  the  upper  employes  of  the 
Municipality,  and  le  haut  commerce  met  at  them  ; 
they  were  admirably  done;  the  great  gallery 
was  magnificent ;  everybody  who  possessed  a 
uniform  wore  it ;  the  show  was  very  brilliant, 
and,  notwithstanding  the  extreme  variety  of 
guests,  scarcely  anybody  looked  ugly.  Nowhere 
could  there  be  found  a  more  interesting  ex- 
hibition of  intermingled  classes,  more  credit- 
able manners  on  the  part  of  the  unaccustomed 
portions  of  the  invited,  more  cordial  acceptance 
of  momentary  mixture  on  the  part  of  the  rest. 
Those  balls  supplied  special  occasions  for  con- 
templating groupings  of  very  diversified  social 


TWO    BALLS   AT   THE    HOTEL   DE   VILLE.       43 

categories  and  of  very  various  nationalities,  all 
in  their  best  clothes.  There  was  no  political 
character  about  them,  nor  did  they  present  any 
popular  peculiarities  in  the  ordinary  meaning  of 
the  word  ;  but  they  were  as  royal,  aristocratic, 
and  international  as  they  were  commercial, 
bureaucratic,  and  French.  Nearly  all  the 
monarchs  and  princes  of  the  time — and  their 
wives  and  daughters  too  —  showed  themselves 
successively  in  that  gallery,  and  every  land  was 
represented  in  it  by  notable  men  and  women. 

The  ball  of  22d  August  1855,  at  which  Queen 
Victoria  and  Prince  Albert  were  present,  may 
fairly  be  taken  as  a  typical  example.  It  was 
not  different  from  the  others,  but  it  was  as  good 
as  any  of  them,  and  it  presented,  in  their  fullest 
degree,  all  the  special  characteristics  of  the 
gatherings  at  the  Hotel  de  Ville.  I  do  not  re- 
member with  any  exactness  what  happened  at 
it,  for  each  fete  was  so  like  the  others  that  they 
have  run  into  a  confused  blend  in  my  recollec- 
tion ;  but  errors,  if  I  make  them,  will  be  of  no 
importance  as  regards  effect  and  outline,  for 
whatever  was  true  of  one  ball  was  true  of  an- 
other, if  not  specifically,  at  all  events  generi- 
cally. 

The   ride  to  the   Hotel  de  Ville  was  weari- 


44  SOME    MEMORIES    OF    PARIS. 

some.  The  queue  of  carriages  began  at  the  Place 
de  la  Concorde,  and  the  invited  had  to  go  on 
thence  at  a  foot's  pace  for  at  least  an  hour,  with 
the  irritation  of  seeing  the  possessors  of  a  coupe 
file  drive  straight  on  at  a  trot.  I  explain  that  a 
coupe  file  is  a  card  given  each  year  by  the  Paris 
police  to  official  persons,  to  enable  them  on  all 
occasions  to  go  on  unstopped  to  their  destin- 
ations. The  result  was  that  the  immense 
majority  disembarked  at  last  in  an  ill-temper. 

After  passing  through  the  splendid  inner 
court,  where,  under  the  arch  of  the  grand  stair- 
case, was  the  famous  transparent  cascade — the 
water  rippling,  trickling,  splashing  down  high 
steps  of  deadened  glass  lighted  brightly  from 
behind,  amidst  masses  of  variegated  plants  and 
hanging  flowers  —  the  crowd  marched  up  the 
broad  ascent,  lined  with  soldiers  at  attention. 
At  the  top,  on  the  great  landing,  it  found  itself 
face  to  face  with  the  givers  of  the  ball,  the 
Municipal  Council  and  the  Prefect  of  the 
Seine,  who,  with  a  forest  of  palm-trees  behind 
them,  stood  there  to  receive  their  arriving 
visitors.  And  on  that  landing  there  was  a 
curious  little  sight  to  see. 

The  Council,  which  in  those  days  was  nomi- 
nated by  the  Government,  not  elected  by  the 


TWO    BALLS    AT   THE    HOTEL    DE    VILLE.       45 

local  Radicals  as  it  is  now,  formed  a  semicircle 
(forty  of  them,  when  they  were  all  there).  They 
had  a  uniform  of  their  own,  proper  to  them- 
selves ;  it  was,  if  I  remember  rightly,  brown 
embroidered  with  silver ;  the  Prefect  in  the 
middle  with  a  coat  of  another  colour,  to  show, 
I  presume,  that  he  was  governmental,  not  mu- 
nicipal. The  entire  party  bowed,  collectively, 
cohesively,  and  concentrically,  though  with 
irregularities  of  inflexion,  to  every  person  who 
appeared ;  and,  as  people  poured  up-stairs  in  an 
unceasing  mob,  the  bowing  kept  the  brown 
uniforms  in  a  condition  of  permanent  oscilla- 
tion, at  the  rate,  I  should  imagine,  of  about 
fifteen  bows  a  minute.  It  was  a  very  creditable 
gymnastic  performance,  especially  as  most  of 
the  forty  acrobats  were  decidedly  old,  and  all 
eminently  respectable  well-to-do  gentlemen  of 
solid  position,  —  bankers,  manufacturers,  pro- 
fessors. That  side  of  the  process  constituted  a 
feature  in  itself,  and  was  alone  worth  going  to 
one  of  the  balls  to  behold.  But  the  return  bows 
of  the  entering  crowd  were  immeasurably  more 
remarkable.  I  think,  indeed,  that  they  pre- 
sented the  most  striking  specimens  of  unfortu- 
nate salutations  that  it  has  been  given  me  to 
view.  The  operation  had  to  be  performed  with 


46  SOME    MEMORIES    OF    PARIS. 

extreme  rapidity  because  of  the  pressure  from 
behind,  so  that  all  that  could  usually  be  man- 
aged by  most  people  was  to  curve  hurriedly 
towards  some  vague  point  of  the  crescent, 
which  was  only  visible  to  ordinary  eyes  as  a 
suddenly  appearing  and  very  indistinct  choco- 
late line,  and  leave  the  rest  unnoticed.  But 
this  insufficient  solution  did  not  satisfy  the 
more  earnest  and  less  experienced  section  of  the 
guests ;  they  thought  it  was  their  stern  duty  to 
try  to  deliver  their  bow  rotatorily,  so  as  to  include 
the  entire  arc  in  the  manifestation  of  respect. 
Now  an  elliptically-shaped  salute  addressed  to 
about  seventy  feet  of  brown  coats,  with  or  with- 
out a  glance  to  each  of  them,  cannot  be  com- 
pleted under  fifteen  seconds  at  the  lowest  com- 
putation, and  never  were  fifteen  seconds  allowed 
to  any  one  for  the  purpose.  The  executant  was 
invariably  upset  by  a  push  from  somewhere, 
tumbled  over  his  own  legs,  and  staggered  away 
humiliated,  recognising  that  he  had  attempted 
more  than  it  was  in  his  power  to  get  through 
with  either  grace  or  safety.  The  women  man- 
aged better  than  the  men ;  their  little  curtsies, 
though  rapid,  were  often  well  achieved.  Some 
people,  women  as  well  as  men,  marched  nobly 
past  the  brown-and-silver  coats  without  taking 


TWO    BALLS    AT   THE    H6TEL    DE    VILLE.       47 

the  slightest  notice  of  them,  which,  though 
ungrateful,  was  very  practical  and  perhaps  par- 
tially excusable. 

When  the  Imperial  and  Royal  guests  arrived 
(which  was  always  rather  late,  so  as  to  allow 
time  for  the  ordinary  public  to  get  in  first), 
the  Prefect  and  the  Council  went  down  to 
meet  them  at  the  door,  and  of  course  from  that 
moment  there  was  no  more  bowing ;  for  which 
reason  timid  persons,  who  feared  the  operation 
on  the  landing,  started  late,  so  as  not  to  reach 
the  ball  until  the  Royalties  were  in.  People 
looked  somewhat  at  the  sovereigns  when  they 
entered ;  but,  for  two  reasons,  staring  of  that 
sort  is  relatively  little  practised  in  Paris.  The 
first  reason  is,  that  the  French,  taken  as  a 
nation  and  not  counting  the  individual  excep- 
tions, have  learned  that  Royal  personages  are 
not  different  from  themselves ;  the  second,  that 
snobbishness  in  France  has  but  slight  national 
existence, — it  is  to  be  found  in  society,  but  not 
amongst  the  masses,  and  even  in  society  there 
is  comparatively  little  disposition  to  glare  at 
monarchs.  It  must  be  remembered,  in  explan- 
ation of  this,  that  there  is  no  nationally  recog- 
nised upper  class,  as  in  England,  to  admire, 
to  imitate,  and  to  attain. 


48  SOME    MEMORIES    OF    PARIS. 

The  sovereigns  took  their  place  on  a  dais  in 
the  middle  of  one  side  of  the  great  gallery  (when 
there  happened  to  be  no  sovereigns  that  dais 
was  occupied  by  the  notabilities  of  the  evening, 
whoever  they  might  happen  to  be).  They  sat 
there  in  pre-eminence  until  the  moment  came 
for  the  procession  through  the  rooms.  Scarcely 
any  one  followed  them  in  their  walk,  except  the 
Court  and  the  official  people ;  they  were  left 
in  such  peace  as  is  accessible  to  Royalty. 
There  was,  however,  a  curiosity  to  see  Queen 
Victoria ;  indeed,  she  was  more  looked  at, 
with  the  single  exception  of  the  Emperor  of 
Russia  in  1867,  than  any  other  royal  visitor 
to  Paris  in  my  time.  The  English  were, 
strange  to  say,  rather  popular  in  France  just 
then  (it  was  during  the  alliance  of  the  Crimean 
war).  Her  Majesty  was  the  only  English 
reigning  sovereign  who  had  ever  come  to 
Paris ;  she  was  a  woman ;  her  presence  was 
regarded  as  an  act  of  high  courtesy  and  as 
of  good  augury. 

The  Emperor  and»  Empress  and  their  guests 
left  early ;  but  their  departure  produced  no 
effect  upon  the  ball ;  it  went  on  as  before. 
There  was  no  Court  etiquette,  no  rules  of 
special  behaviour  towards  monarchs  any  more 


TWO   BALLS   AT   THE    HOTEL   DE   VILLE.       49 

than  towards  other  people ;  all  that  was  ex- 
pected was  that  the  latter  would  be  respectful 
towards  the  former.  The  only  difference  after 
they  had  withdrawn  was  that,  the  slight  dis- 
traction of  Royal1  presence  having  ceased,  the 
crowd  was  able  to  bestow  its  exclusive  attention 
on  what  was,  undeniably,  and  in  everybody's 
opinion,  the  most  marked  national  character- 
istic of  the  Hotel  de  Ville  balls.  That  char- 
acteristic was  the  show  of  uniforms. 

Never  anywhere  was  there  brought  together 
such  a  prodigious  variety  of  many  -  shaped, 
many-coloured,  and  much-embroidered  coats. 
Nearly  all  the  presentable  male  costumes  of 
the  world  must  have  appeared  at  one  or  other 
of  those  balls ;  everybody,  from  all  parts  of 
the  earth,  came  to  Paris  in  those  days ;  every- 
body went  to  the  Hotel  de  Ville ;  everybody, 
as  I  have  already  said,  wore  a  uniform  if  he 
had  one,  and  on  the  Continent  all  functionaries 
possess  raiments  distinctive  of  their  office.  No 
Court  assemblage  supplied,  or  does  supply,  such 
a  varied  pageant,  for  the^  simple  but  decisive 
reason  that,  with  the  exception  of  the  diplo- 
matic body,  very  few  foreigners  are  to  be  seen 
at  Courts.  At  the  Hotel  de  Ville  of  Paris, 
on  the  contrary,  the  gathering  was  extraordin- 
D 


5O  SOME    MEMORIES   OF    PARIS. 

arily  cosmopolitan.  It  included  specimens  of 
everybody  from  everywhere,  and  presented  a 
collection  of  male  attire  of  which  nobody  has 
seen  the  like  before  or  since. 

I  often  heard  discussions  as  to  the  relative 
effect  produced  by  each  one  of  the  hundreds 
of  diversified  equipments,  and  I  remember  that 
the  common  verdict  gave  the  front  place  to 
the  uniform  of  the  Hussar  generals  of  the 
Austrian  army  (the  same  opinion  has  been 
expressed  about  it  wherever  else  I  have  en- 
countered it).  The  tunic  and  breeches  are 
scarlet,  embroidered  abundantly  with  gold ; 
the  dolman  white,  laced  with  gold  and  edged 
with  sable ;  the  busby  is  in  sable.  Nothing 
more  superb  has  been  imagined,  thus  far,  as 
a  covering  for  man.  At  St  Petersburg  there 
is  an  amazing  exhibition  of  Asiatic  uniforms, 
some  of  them  most  resplendent  and  effective; 
yet  when  they  are  transplanted  into  Western 
Europe  they  lose  the  naturalness  they  possess 
in  Russia,  do  not  produce  the  same  effect  of 
being  in  their  right  place,  and  assume  a  more 
or  less  barbaric  aspect.  But  that  Austrian  uni- 
form preserves  the  same  distinguished  character 
wherever  it  is  beheld.  Many  of  the  civil  uni- 
forms were  bright  and  well  conceived,  especially 


TWO   BALLS   AT   THE    HOTEL   DE   VILLE.       51 

the  fifteen  or  twenty  sorts  of  them  that  were 
worn  by  the  divers  officials  of  the  Imperial 
Court ;  but,  as  a  rule,  in  that  exhibition  the 
soldiers  had  certainly  the  best  of  the  clothes. 
I  was  much  diverted  at  the  Queen's  ball  (at 
least  I  believe  it  was  at  that  one)  by  the 
agitating  sensation  provoked  by  a  kilted  High- 
lander. Wherever  he  went  a  mob  accompanied 
him,  looking  gapingly  but  disapprovingly  at  his 
legs,  and  wondering  whether  the  police  would 
turn  him  out  for  impropriety.  The  women  in 
particular  were  curious  to  see  him,  but  shocked 
when  they  did  so ;  they  crowded  up  to  him, 
gazed,  and  then  retired  discreetly.  He  had 
undeniably  the  success  of  the  evening,  so  far, 
that  is,  as  bewildered  staring  can  be  said  to 
constitute  success. 

The  mass  of  other  caparisons  dwells  as  a 
promiscuous  fog  in  my  memory.  I  can  describe 
none  of  them.  I  remember  only  and  vaguely 
that  every  hue  was  represented ;  that,  for  in- 
stance, there  were  at  least  fifteen  competing 
shades  of  red,  from  the  pink  burnoose  of  a 
Morocco  sheikh,  through  all  the  hues  of  scarlet, 
crimson,  and  amaranth,  to  the  dark  claret  of 
the  Empress's  chamberlains.  But,  misty  as  is 
my  recollection  of  details,  I  can  repeat  with 


52  SOME    MEMORIES   OF   PARIS. 

certainty  that  the  display,  as  a  whole,  consti- 
tuted a  prodigious  glitter,  and  that  there  was 
ample  justification  for  the  popular  impression 
that  the  uniforms  were  always  the  particular 
show  of  those  balls. 

And  yet  there  was  in  the  air  around  those 
coats  the  inevitable  sensation  (inevitable  be- 
cause it  is  felt  on  every  occasion  when  such  coats 
are  looked  at)  that  the  clothes  blotted  out  the 
man.  The  wearer  needs  to  look  particularly 
some  one  if  he  is  to  succeed  in  maintaining 
his  personality  in  spite  of  obtrusive  trappings. 
Colours,  gold  lace,  stars,  ribbons,  and  other 
varied  glories,  assert  themselves  at  the  expense 
of  the  body  within  them ;  even  that  admirable 
Austrian  uniform  requires  a  wearer  as  smart 
as  his  clothes  if  he  is  to  avoid  being  effaced 
by  them.  Our  eye  is  caught  by  the  outside ; 
the  inside  is  relatively  invisible.  When,  under 
such  circumstances,  we  look  for  the  inside,  we 
have  sometimes  difficulty  in  perceiving  any  in- 
side at  all.  The  black  clothes  of  every  night, 
hideous  as  they  are,  have  at  all  events  the 
merit,  by  their  uncompeting  dulness,  of  leaving 
the  individual  in  full  visibility;  but  uniform  is 
always  more  or  less  disguising  and  produces 
the  contrary  result ;  and  the  more  magnificent 


TWO    BALLS   AT   THE    HOTEL   DE   VILLE.        53 

the  uniform,  the  more  contrary  is  the  result, 
which  is  wounding  for  the  vanity  of  mankind. 
Shabby  clothes  obliterate  a  man  in  one  direc- 
tion ;  smart  ones  obliterate  him  in  another. 

By  the  side  of  the  men  the  women  at  those 
balls  lost  their  usual  supremacy  of  effect.  They 
were  simply  what  they  always  were,  in  evening 
dresses ;  they  offered  no  special  spectacle ;  the 
men  supplied  that  all  by  themselves.  We  were 
accustomed  to  see  women  decolletees,  but  we 
were  not  accustomed  to  see  such  a  mass  of  men 
from  all  parts  of  the  world  in  their  gala  cos- 
tumes. The  effect  of  uniforms  must  indeed 
have  been  vigorous  to  deaden,  as  it  did  most 
assuredly  at  those  strangely  intermingled  balls, 
the  counter-attraction  of  women. 

An  amusing  particularity-  of  those  composite 
festivals  was  that  they  supplied  occasions,  which 
were  rarely  found  otherwise,  for  foreigners  to 
get  introduced  to  a  few  French  people,  and  I 
think  the  French  rejoiced  in  the  accident  even 
more  than  the  foreigners.  A  French  girl  was 
not  inconsiderably  flattered  to  find  one  of  the 
gorgeous  strangers,  whom  she  had  been  con- 
templating with  an  admiration  approaching  to 
awe,  brought  up  to  her  as  a  candidate  for  a 
dance.  Whether  he  was  an  officer  of  Spanish 


54  SOME    MEMORIES   OF    PARIS. 

halberdiers,  a  black  Brunswicker,  a  Hungarian 
in  velvet,  a  Zeithen  hussar,  a  Papal  Noble 
Guard,  or  a  Danish  Secretary  of  Legation  in 
scarlet  (the  Danes  are  the  only  diplomatists  who 
wear  red),  he  was  equally  curious  to  her,  and 
equally  welcome.  I  cannot  say  if  she  would 
have  had  the  courage  to  stand  up  with  a  High- 
lander; I  doubt  it.  I  have  heard  pleased  talk 
in  French  families  of  the  acquaintances  made 
in  those  days  at  the  Hotel  de  Ville.  Often 
were  mothers  graciously  pleased  to  observe  :  "  It 
is  extraordinary ;  but  really  some  of  these  for- 
eigners are  very  agreeable,  and  their  get-up  is 
superb.  In  France  we  have  no  uniforms  like 
theirs." 

It  is  scarcely  to  be  expected  that  such  balls 
will  ever  be  seen  again.  They  were  only  ren- 
dered possible  by  the  combination  of  the  peculiar 
conditions  of  life  under  the  Second  Empire  with 
the  momentary  absence  of  all  international  hates. 
They  were  a  product  of  circumstances  which 
have  passed  away  with  the  period  which  begot 
them,  and  which,  from  the  present  look  of 
things,  do  not  seem  likely  to  return.  The  whole 
civilised  world  was  anxious  to  come  to  them ; 
for  while  they  offended  no  opinions  and  shocked 
no  prejudices,  they  pleased  even  the  most  ex- 


TWO   BALLS   AT  THE    H6TEL   DE   VILLE.       55 

perienced  eyes,  and  to  beginners  seemed  in- 
credibly brilliant.  On  looking  back  to  other 
festivities  at  which  I  have  assisted  in  many 
lands,  I  unhesitatingly  put  first  those  balls  at  the 
Hotel  de  Ville  of  Paris,  and  I  consider  it  a  privi- 
lege to  have  seen  them  and  to  have  the  memory 
of  them.  They  did  not  offer,  of  course,  the 
stately  ceremonial  or  the  finished  pageantry  of 
balls  at  the  great  Courts,  but  they  were  far  more 
generally  representative,  and  far  more  widely 
cosmopolitan,  than  any  of  the  fetes  that  are 
usually  seen  in  palaces. 

Since  those  days  I  have  been  present  at  one 
more  ball  at  the  Hotel  de  Ville.  Not  in  the 
same  building,  alas !  for  it  was  burnt  in  the 
Commune  of  1871,  but  in  the  new  edifice  which 
has  been  built  since  on  the  same  site,  and  in 
which  the  actual  Municipal  Council  has  given 
a  certain  number  of  entertainments  to  its  elec- 
tors. After  much  hesitation  I  was  induced  to 
go  to  one  of  them  on  the  2d  of  April  1887,  and 
I  have  never  ceased  to  regret  that  I  was  weak 
enough  to  yield  to  the  pressure  of  the  friends 
who  urged  me  to  accompany  them. 

I  will  not  attempt  to  describe  what  I  beheld ; 
all  I  will  say  is  that  there  is  not  one  single  point 
in  common  between  the  balls  of  then  and  the 


56  SOME    MEMORIES   OF    PARIS. 

balls  of  now, — save  the  fact  that  both  are  tech- 
nically described  by  the  same  title  of  "  Balls  at 
the  Hotel  de  Ville."  It  would  be  both  pitiful 
and  ridiculous  to  give  an  exact  account  of  the 
present  after  what  I  have  been  saying  of  the 
past. 

Neither  society  nor  foreigners  were  to  be  seen 
at  the  new  ball,  and,  excepting  a  few  French 
officers,  there  was  not  a  single  man  in  uniform. 
The  type  of  the  visitors  was  so  utterly  altered 
that  I  stood  wondering  how  it  was  possible  that 
mere  changes  of  political  circumstances  could 
have  brought  about  so  prodigious  a  transforma- 
tion. The  simple  substitution  of  the  Republic 
for  the  Empire  was  not  sufficient  to  explain  it, 
for  though  strangers  no  longer  come  to  Paris, 
there  are  still  delightful-looking  French  people 
in  quantities.  The  true  causes  of  the  revolution 
are  the  transfer  of  municipal  authority  to  an 
intensely  radical  body,  to  the  consequent  intro- 
duction of  a  totally  new  category  of  guests,  and 
to  the  absence  of  all  persons  of  social  position 
who,  even  if  they  were  invited,  would  refuse  to 
go.  I  came  away  at  the  end  of  half  an  hour 
with  a  feeling  of  something  like  disgust,  but 
with  the  consolation  of  recognising  that  the 
strange  sight  at  which  I  had  been  glancing  had 


TWO    BALLS    AT   THE    HOTEL    DE    VILLE.        57 

not  affected  my  impressions  of  other  days; 
that  those  impressions,  notwithstanding  what 
I  had  just  seen,  remained  unweakened,  and  that 
neither  the  brilliancy  of  their  old  colouring  nor 
the  clearness  of  their  old  outlines  had  been 
affected  by  the  terrible  contrast  of  the  spectacle 
which  claims  nominally  to  replace  them. 

To  the  Radicals  of  to-day  a  "ball  at  the 
Hotel  de  Ville  "  may  mean  such  a  gathering  as 
I  was  led  to  on  2d  April  1887,  but  to  the  world 
at  large  it  still  signifies,  and  probably  will  al- 
ways signify,  a  ball  of  the  Imperial  period. 


CHAPTER    IV. 

THE    LAST   DAY   OF   THE    EMPIRE. 

THE  story  of  the  4th  of  September  1870  has 
been  told  so  often  and  so  minutely  that  it  would 
be  useless  to  relate  it  again  for  itself;  there  is 
nothing  left  to  tell.  Furthermore,  my  own  re- 
collections of  it  are  very  slight,  for  I  beheld 
almost  nothing  of  what  happened.  Like  other 
people,  I  have  read  up  the  tale  since,  but  I  am 
only  acquainted  with  the  greater  part  of  it  at 
second  hand.  If  I  speak  of  the  day  here,  it  is 
not,  therefore,  because  I  have  any  particular 
knowledge  of  its  details,  but  for  the  totally  dif- 
ferent reason  that  it  produced  in  me  a  tremen- 
dous sensation  of  ruin  which  I  have  never 
forgotten,  and  which  has  placed  it  in  the  very 
front  of  my  memories  of  Paris.  Of  that  sen- 
sation alone  have  I  anything  to  say. 

The  period  before  Sedan  had  been  leadenly 


THE    LAST   DAY   OF   THE    EMPIRE.  59 

oppressing.  The  air  was  full  of  a  constantly 
augmenting  sickly  apprehension.  The  "light 
heart "  with  which  the  war  began  had  utterly, 
disappeared.  The  battles  round  Metz  had 
crushed  out  the  optimism  of  the  French  ;  alarm 
had  taken  root  and  grown;  the  possibility  of 
complete  defeat  was,  so  far,  admitted  by  no  one  ; 
the  yearning  to  conquer  was  passionate,  poig- 
nant, convulsive ;  but  there  had  crawled  into 
every  mind  a  wearying  strain,  a  restless  quiver- 
ing, an  undefined  fearfulness  of  the  future,  which 
were  reflected  in  almost  every  face.  To  make 
matters  still  more  painful,  it  was  felt  that, 
amidst  that  terrible  anxiety,  the  news  supplied 
was  unreliable :  the  daily  statements  in  the 
papers  were  more  or  less  fantastic  and  conflict- 
ing ;  even  the  official  telegrams  posted  up  at  the 
Ministry  of  the  Interior  in  the  Place  Beauvau 
were  regarded  with  suspicion.  The  struggle 
between  gnawing  fear  and  desperately  persistent 
hope,  between  the  new  crushing  evidence  of  facts 
and  the  old  deeply-rooted  national  conviction  that 
France  could  not  be  beaten,  was  cruelly  fierce. 

The  position  of  foreigners  had  become  diffi- 
cult. It  was  scarcely  possible  for  a  stranger, 
whatever  were  the  reality  and  the  strength  of 
his  sympathies  for  France,  to  view  the  situation 


6O  SOME    MEMORIES    OF    PARIS. 

as  the  French  did.  Every  single  Frenchman 
with  whom  I  talked  during  those  gloomy  days 
was  convinced  that  the  successes  of  the  Prus- 
sians were  due  to  "treachery,"  though  nobody 
defined,  or  attempted  to  define,  the  meaning  or 
the  application  of  the  word ;  and,  additionally, 
every  one  insisted  that  it  was  the  duty  of  every 
other  country  to  take  the  side  of  France.  How 
could  a  foreigner  agree  with  such  ideas  ?  And 
yet  it  was  essential  to  put  on  an  appearance 
of  agreement  with  them  in  order  to  avoid  quar- 
rels :  it  was  not  permitted  to  be  neutral ;  it  was 
obligatory  to  talk  in  the  same  tone  as  the 
French  under  penalty  of  being  regarded  by 
them  as  an  enemy.  This  made  the  situation 
infinitely  disagreeable ;  but  there  is  no  denying 
that,  all  the  same,  notwithstanding  its  incon- 
veniences and  risks,  it  was  even  more  infinitely 
interesting. 

I  was  surrounded  by  a  confused  mixture  of 
"  patriotic  anguish  "  (the  phrase  was  first  used 
by  M.  Rouher),  of  fanatical  suspicions,  of  gasp- 
ing longings  for  victory,  of  chafing  rage  against 
the  monstrous  injustice  of  fate  and  against  the 
perfidious  indifference  of  other  nations.  All  tem- 
pers were  worried,  fractious,  querulous.  I  had 
before  me  the  spectacle  of  a  nation  heart-sick. 


THE    LAST    DAY    OF    THE    EMPIRE.  6l 

Such  was  the  general  state  of  mind  in  which 
Paris  reached  Saturday  the  3d  of  September. 
The  battle  of  Sedan  had  been  fought  two  days 
before ;  but  though  it  appears  certain,  from 
evidence  produced  since,  that  the  Government 
was  acquainted  with  the  issue  on  the  night  of 
the  2d,  it  was  not  till  the  morning  of  the  3d 
that  private  telegrams  from  London  and  Brus- 
sels brought  the  first  rumours  of  a  great  reverse ; 
not  till  four  in  the  afternoon  that  the  lamentable 
despatch  to  the  Empress  arrived — 

L'armee  est  defaite  et  captive ;  moi-meme  je  suis 
prisonnier.  NAPOLEON. 

— not  till  seven  in  the  evening  that  the  whole 
awful  news  burst  out. 

I  had  been  ill  that  day  and  had  been  obliged 
to  -stay  indoors.  No  one  had  come  to  see  me, 
which  was  natural,  for  most  of  my  acquaint- 
ances had  left  Paris.  I  cannot,  however,  pre- 
tend that  I  regretted  their  absence,  because,  for 
the  reasons  I  have  just  given,  I  had  begun  to 
shrink  somewhat  from  seeing  French  friends. 
The  result  was  that  I  learned  nothing  on  the 
Saturday  night,  and  went  to  bed  before  sun- 
set, unwell  and  anxious,  but  ignorant. 

On  the  Sunday  morning  a  servant  woke  me 
with  the  news  of  Sedan,  which  had  been  raging 


62  SOME    MEMORIES   OF    PARIS. 

over  Paris  for  twelve  hours  without  my  knowing 
one  word  about  it.  It  scared  me  utterly.  A  feel- 
ing dashed  into  me  that  there  was  an  end  of 
France.  It  came  with  a  devastating  rush  ;  no 
reasoning  led  me  to  it ;  it  was  there  —  in  me. 
I  had  expected  disaster,  but  not  such  disaster 
as  that.  The  reality  surpassed  all  imagination. 
There  seemed  suddenly  to  be  nothing  left.  The 
Emperor  and  his  whole  army  taken  !  Never  shall 
I  forget  the  desolating  alarm  for  France  that 
seized  me.  Of  course  it  was  exaggerated 
(especially  when  looked  at  from  this  distance 
and  under  present  conditions).  Of  course,  if  I 
had  been  able  to  think  coolly,  and  had  given 
myself  time  to  do  it,  I  should  have  recognised 
that  France  herself  existed  still ;  but,  under  the 
pulverising  circumstances  of  the  moment,  I 
really  think  I  had  some  cause  for  that  first  im- 
pression. The  blow  seemed  more  and  more 
stunning  as  each  second  passed.  I  had  not 
conceived  that  political  demolition  could  pro- 
duce an  even  greater  moral  effect  than  material 
destruction. 

I  read  the  papers  throbbingly,  rolled  about 
in  bed,  stared  blankly  and  blackly  at  the  future, 
and  passed  through  a  strangely  painful  quarter 
of  an  hour. 


THE    LAST    DAY    OF   THE    EMPIRE.  63 

Then,  naturally,  my  ordinary  ways  reasserted 
themselves,  and,  though  I  was  still  ill,  I  got  up 
to  dress,  go  out,  and  see  what  was  happening. 

The  instant  I  was  outside  my  door  I  was 
conscious  of  a  change  in  the  aspect  of  Paris. 
Something  had  come  into  it  since  the  day 
before.  The  atmosphere  was  other.  My  street 
(which,  though  wide  enough  for  a  great  thor- 
oughfare, led  to  nowhere  in  particular  and  was 
usually  empty)  was  not  calm ;  groups,  unknown 
in  ordinary  life,  stood  about  in  it,  discussing, 
disputing,  gesticulating.  In  the  nearest  gather- 
ing I  perceived  a  concierge  I  knew,  so  I  stopped 
and  asked  him — 

"  What  are  people  saying  ?" 

"  Oh,  all  sorts  of  things,"  he  answered,  inco- 
herently ;  "  some  talk  one  way  and  some  an- 
other; some  pity  the  Emperor;  some  say  he 
has  betrayed  us  and  has  sold  us  to  William, 
and  that  it  serves  him  right  to  be  caught  him- 
self; some  think  the  Prussians  will  be  in  Paris 
to-morrow,  and  that  we  shall  all  be  prisoners." 

"  And  what  is  going  to  happen  to-day  ?  "  I 
inquired. 

Instead  of  replying,  my  acquaintance  looked 
timidly  round  the  circle,  leaving  it  to  one  of 
the  others  to  mutter  savagely — 


64  SOME    MEMORIES    OF    PARIS. 

"  They  are  coming  down  from  Belleville ; 
there  will  be  a  fight  on  the  Boulevard,  and 
there  will  be  no  Empire  left  to-night.  Curse 
the  Emperor ! " 

Not  one  of  them  had  a  word  for  France ! 
They  had  apparently  but  two  subjects  of 
thought  —  themselves  and  the  Emperor;  the 
country  did  not  seem  to  count. 

In  the  next  street,  where  there  was  more 
movement,  there  was  also  more  bitterness ;  the 
people  were  still  mainly  of  the  same  class,  peace- 
ful folks,  above  the  position  of  artisans,  with 
interests  to  protect,  habitually  stagnant,  not 
revolutionary,  not  politicians,  still  less  soldiers, 
accustomed  to  leave  everything  to  the  Govern- 
ment ;  but  that  morning  there  was  a  heaving 
amongst  them  of  which  I  should  not  have 
imagined  them  capable.  There  were  visibly 
increasing  sneerings  at  the  Emperor,  there 
were  rejoicings  over  his  fall ;  but,  nevertheless, 
there  were  still  many  in  the  streets  during  those 
first  hours  of  the  day  who  were  only  softly  sad, 
and  who  had  the  courage  to  say  they  pitied  him. 
It  was  not  until  the  afternoon  that  the  entire 
population,  under  the  influence  of  events  and 
of  example,  turned  unanimously  against  him 
and  poured  out  universal  imprecations  on  his 


THE    LAST   DAY   OF   THE   EMPIRE.  65 

name.  I  noticed  again  and  again,  and  every- 
where, that  no  one  spoke  of  France.  I  appeared 
to  be  alone  in  my  intense  preoccupation  about 
her  future,  and  I  well  remember  the  feeling  oi 
strange  solitude  I  experienced  in  those  crowds, 
where,  so  far  as  I  could  judge  from  the  signs 
on  the  surface,  no  one  seemed  to  share  my 
anxiety  for  the  country  herself.  Perhaps  it 
was  precisely  because,  not  being  directly  con- 
cerned, I  was  able  to  view  the  situation  as  a 
whole  more  easily  than  the  French  could. 

Not  an  allusion  was  made  to  the  Empress. 
She  was  not  liked.  At  that  moment  of  supreme 
distress  no  one,  within  my  hearing,  manifested 
any  interest  in  her,  or  any  care  as  to  what  might 
become  of  her. 

I  went  slowly  on  from  street  to  street,  joining 
often  in  the  groups,  listening  to  the  talk,  observ- 
ing always  the  same  contradictory  symptoms, 
the  same  compound  of  relatively  peaceful  dis- 
tress, of  comparatively  tranquil  irritation,  and 
of  profound  personal  disquietude,  with  an  ever- 
enlarging  proportion  of  ferocity  and  of  cries  fdr 
vengeance  against  Napoleon  III. 

At  the  entrance  to  the  Grand  Hotel  I  met  two 
acquaintances,  both  terribly  depressed,  both  cer- 
tain that,  notwithstanding  the  position  of  France, 


66  SOME    MEMORIES   OF    PARIS. 

the  Emperor  would  be  dethroned  at  once,  both 
utterly  indifferent  to  the  political  future.  It  was 
not  their  business  to  form  another  Government, 
and  they  said  they  did  not  care  what  Govern- 
ment came  in  provided  only  it  could  beat  the 
Prussians.  For  that  one  result  they  did  sigh 
passionately ;  but  their  longings  did  not  appear 
to  extend  further.  When  I  ventured  to  suggest 
that  it  was  not  quite  the  moment  to  effect  a 
revolution,  and  that  such  work  as  that  had 
better  be  left  until  the  enemy  was  no  longer 
looking  on,  they  replied  that  they  did  not  care, 
provided  only  some  one  would  win  a  battle.  At 
the  moment  I  thought  their  tone  and  attitude 
special  to  themselves,  but  afterwards  I  had 
reason  to  suppose  that  they  represented  fairly 
well  the  condition  of  opinion  of  a  large  portion 
of  the  educated  classes.  Nearly  all  of  them  had 
lost  sight  of  every  consideration  save  victory 
alone. 

They  told  me  that,  in  all  probability,  the  mob 
from  Belleville  and  the  National  Guards  from 
everywhere,  would  not  reach  the  Chamber  until 
one  or  two  o'clock,  and  that  nothing  riotous 
could  be  expected  until  then.  So,  as  I  was 
weak  and  tired,  and  as  I  had  satisfied  my  im- 
mediate longing  for  contact  with  outside  news 


THE    LAST    DAY    OF   THE    EMPIRE.  67 

and  outside  impressions,  I  thought  I  had  had 
enough.  My  sensations  (which  I  remember 
vividly)  formed  a  confused  jumble  of  horror 
of  the  realities  of  the  instant,  of  extreme  dis- 
tress for  France,  of  wondering  anxiety  as  to 
what  would  happen  next,  and  of  a  beginning 
of  hesitation  as  to  what  I  had  better  do.  For 
the  first  time  I  asked  myself  whether,  under 
the  new  circumstances  which  surrounded  me, 
it  was  either  worth  while  or  wise  for  me  to 
stop  on  in  Paris.  I  was  catching  from  the 
French  some  share  of  their  preoccupation  about 
their  individual  fates. 

Sadly  I  smouldered  homewards.  I  determined 
not  to  look  on  at  the  coming  catastrophe.  I  was 
not  tempted  to  see  history  of  that  sort  made. 
I  had  always  gone  to  view  sights,  no  matter 
of  what  nature.  The  disposition  to  be  an  eye- 
witness of  everything  that  happened  had  been 
strong  in  me;  but  on  that  4th  of  September 
I  shrank  from  the  spectacle  of  destruction,  for 
I  fancied  I  could  hear  the  German  armies  laugh- 
ing with  delight  at  the  work  French  hands  were 
performing  at  such  a  moment  and  under  such 
conditions.  I  determined  to  shut  my  eyes, 
wilfully,  in  order  not  to  see.  I  could  not  face 
the  smash,  for  it  meant,  as  I  judged  it  under 


68  SOME    MEMORIES   OF    PARIS. 

the  impressions  of  the  instant,  the  irreparable 
fall  of  France. 

Yet  after  lunch  the  old  habit  thrust  itself 
forward  again,  and  notwithstanding  my  illness 
and  my  repugnance,  I  dragged  myself  back 
miserably  to  the  Boulevard.  In  my  then  state 
of  mind  these  fluctuations  of  feeling  and  of 
action  appeared  to  me  quite  natural. 

It  was  about  four  o'clock  when  I  reached  the 
top  of  the  Rue  de  la  Paix,  just  in  time  to  see  the 
return  of  a  part  of  the  crowd  which  had  been 
urging  on  the  National  Guards  to  attack  the 
Chamber.  I  heard  from  eager  mouths  around 
me  that  a  Government  of  lawyers  was  to  be 
proclaimed  at  the  Hotel  de  Ville.  The  mob 
yelled  frantically  as  it  marched  on  ;  the  weather 
was  superbly  fine ;  that  such  a  scene  of  national 
disgrace  (as  I  regarded  it)  should  be  enlustred 
by  so  gorgeous  a  daylight  appeared  to  me  to  be 
a  desecration  of  the  sun.  The  sight  before  me 
was  politically  and  morally  so  dismal  that  I 
could  not  pardon  the  sky  for  shining  on  it. 

That  the  Empire  should  be  turned  out  with 
dishonour  was  inevitable,  necessary,  and  just; 
but  not  while  fighting  was  going  on,  not  on  the 
morrow  of  a  vast  defeat.  The  sentence  on  it 
should  have  been  pronounced  at  another  and 


THE    LAST   DAY  OF   THE    EMPIRE.  69 

a  fitter  moment.  The  stream  that  France  was 
wading  through  was  too  wide,  too  muddy,  and 
too  flooded  for  her  to  stop  to  swop  horses  in  the 
middle  of  it.  I  could  not  forgive  the  half-dozen 
deputies  who  on  such  a  day  thought  fit  to  seize 
the  Government  for  their  own  use.  I  cared 
nothing  for  the  Empire,  but  that  it  should  be 
kicked  off  by  the  French  themselves  under  the 
blows  and  before  the  eyes  of  the  victorious 
enemy,  appeared  to  me  to  constitute  a  still  further 
fall  for  France.  The  demerits  of  the  Empire 
did  not  exculpate  those  who  made  the  unpatri- 
otic revolution  of  the  4th  of  September.  The 
arraignment  of  the  Empire  should  have  been 
reserved  until  the  last  German  had  left  the  soil. 
How  infinitely  more  solemn  it  would  have  be- 
come !  And  assuredly  there  is  no  reason  for  sup- 
posing that  the  war  would  have  been  continued 
either  less  vigorously  or  more  unsuccessfully. 

The  mob  kept  pouring  on,  tumultuous, 
delighted,  as  if  it  had  performed  a  noble  act. 
I  was  told  that  it  varied  its  pastimes  by  occa- 
sionally hunting  down  "a  spy,"  but  I  saw 
nothing  of  the  process.  It  is  true  I  was  half- 
dazed  and  beheld  dimly.  The  destinies  of 
France  had  become  dear  to  me  from  long 
contact  with  her,  and  I  was  possessed  by  an 


JO  SOME    MEMORIES   OF    PARIS. 

extraordinarily  intense  perception  of  her  ruin. 
I  was  in  a  waking  nightmare  of  wreckage, 
crashing,  and  annihilation.  I  could  not  have 
supposed  it  possible  to  get  face  to  face  with 
such  a  sentiment  of  havoc  and  outrage. 

There  was  additionally,  since  that  morning, 
the  new  sudden  fear  that  Paris  would  be  be- 
sieged !  Nobody,  so  far,  had  thought  of  that 
as  a  realisable  possibility.  Paris  besieged  !  The 
capital  of  the  earth  beleaguered!  "La  mile 
lumiere"  dragged  down  to  the  level  of  a  mere 
fortress  and  invested !  Where  was  the  world 
going  when  such  a  thing  could  be  ? 

That  was,  however,  the  future,  the  near  future 
perhaps,  but  still  the  future.  The  present  was 
sufficient  in  itself;  the  present  was  Sedan,  the 
disappearance  of  the  Empire  in  the  gutter,  and 
the  triumph  of  the  Radical  barristers.  I  wished 
to  look  no  further  for  the  moment. 

I  longed  to  be  alone.  The  crowd,  the  shouts, 
the  seizure  of  power  by  a  faction  in  consequence 
of  a  national  defeat,  and,  almost  more  than  all, 
the  wanton,  remorseless,  mocking  sunlight,  star- 
ing blazingly  at  the  scene  as  if  it  approved  and 
applauded,  offended  me  to  the  bottom  of  my 
heart.  It  was  a  time  for  mourning,  not  for 
noise  -,  for  sadness,  not  for  glare. 


THE    LAST   DAY   OF  THE    EMPIRE.  71 

The  moral  impression  of  which  I  have  not 
ceased  to  speak  hung  massively  upon  me.  I 
turned  away  into  back  -  streets,  where  there 
were  shadows  in  harmony  with  my  thoughts. 
I  crawled  home,  laid  down,  and  felt  wretched. 
I  knew,  at  last,  what  it  is  to  see  a  nation 
sink. 


CHAPTER   V. 

THE    ENGLISH    FOOD    GIFTS   AFTER  THE    SIEGE. 

WHEN  the  siege  of  Paris  was  drawing  to  its 
end,  and  when  lamentable  reports  of  the  star- 
vation that  was  going  on  inside  were  circu- 
lating about  Europe,  everybody  took  it  for 
granted  that,  for  a  time  after  the  opening  of 
the  gates  and  until  regular  supplies  could  be 
obtained  once  more,  a  considerable  portion  of 
the  population  would  continue  to  be  in  serious 
straits  for  food.  The  stocks  in  the  place  were 
known  to  be  exhausted ;  the  railways  had  been 
much  damaged,  and  required  to  be  got  back 
into  working  condition  before  traffic  could  be 
reorganised  and  provisions  brought  in ;  and  it 
was  imagined,  additionally,  that  a  good  many 
people  would  have  no  money  to  pay  for  bread. 
For  these  various  reasons  it  seemed  certain 
to  outsiders  that  a  period  of  serious  want  would 


ENGLISH    FOOD    GIFTS    AFTER   THE    SIEGE.        73 

have  to  be  bridged  over.  The  gaze  of  the 
world  was  fixed  on  Paris ;  everybody  felt  per- 
sonal sorrow  for  it ;  the  deepest  interest  in  the 
griefs  of  its  inhabitants  was  everywhere  ex- 
pressed. In  England,  as  elsewhere,  the  talk 
of  the  time  was  full  of  sympathy ;  and  in  Eng- 
land— though  not  elsewhere — active  measures 
were  taken  to  show  the  reality  of  that  sympathy. 
The  Lord  Mayor  of  London  called  a  meeting 
at  the  Mansion  House,  as  he  usually  does 
when  a  great  suffering  claims  alleviation,  ap- 
pealed to  the  British  public  to  help  Paris,  and 
opened  a  subscription.  With  the  product  of 
that  subscription  (which  was  large),  food  was 
bought  in  quantities  in  anticipation  of  the  sur- 
render, and  was  sent  off  to  Havre  and  Dieppe, 
in  the  hope  that,  by  effort  and  good  luck,  it 
might,  somehow,  be  got  up  to  Paris  in  time 
to  be  of  use. 

The  situation  appeared  to  be  made  worse 
still  by  one  of  the  conditions  of  the  capitula- 
tion, which  stipulated  that  no  food  for  Paris 
should  be  drawn  from  any  of  the  portions  of 
France  then  occupied  by  the  Germans, — the 
reason  being  that  the  conquerors  needed  for 
themselves  all  that  those  portions  could  pro- 
duce. This  restriction  signified  that,  as  all 


74  SOME    MEMORIES    OF    PARIS. 

the  Northern  Departments,  up  to  the  Belgian 
frontier,  were  in  German  hands,  and  as  German 
regiments  had  stretched  out  beyond  Normandy 
in  the  west,  and  beyond  Burgundy  in  the  south, 
supplies  for  the  capital  could  only  be  practi- 
cally sought  in  distant  departments.  But  the 
Germans,  very  generously,  did  not  enforce  this 
clause,  and  allowed  food  to  be  bought  for  Paris 
wherever  it  could  be  found,  even  at  Versailles, 
where  they  really  required  it  for  their  own 
people.  The  result  was  that,  as  the  railways 
were  patched  up  wonderfully  fast,  stocks  got 
in  with  a  relative  abundance  and  a  positive 
speed  which  astonished  the  beholders. 

It  happened  in  reality,  after  all  this  appre- 
hension, that  Paris  had  scarcely  starved  at  all, 
in  the  strict  sense  of  the  term.  Everybody 
who  had  money  to  spend  was  able,  throughout 
the  siege,  to  obtain  necessaries  in  sufficient 
quantity,  and  even  certain  luxuries.  The  star- 
vation that  was  so  much  talked  of  by  com- 
miserating Europe  rarely  meant,  for  the  mass 
of  the  population,  any  absolute  absence  of  food. 
I  did  not  hear  of  one  proved  case  of  death 
from  hunger ;  but,  of  course,  I  do  not  pretend 
that  none  occurred,  for,  even  in  ordinary  times, 
people  in  large  agglomerations  die  frequently 


ENGLISH    FOOD    GIFTS    AFTER   THE    SIEGE.       75 

from  want.  Throughout  the  siege,  too,  charity 
was  at  work  with  open  hands ;  the  richer 
people  contributed  abundantly  to  the  relief  of 
the  needs  around  them.  There  was  discomfort 
for  the  wealthy ;  there  was  scantiness  for  the 
middle  classes ;  there  was  privation  for  the 
poor;  all  sorts  of  unaccustomed  nourishment 
were  utilised ;  but  there  was  always  food  of 
some  sort,  though  generally  inferior  in  quality, 
and  in  many  cases  insufficient  in  quantity.  A 
certain  number  of  persons,  especially  women, 
had,  towards  the  end,  great  difficulty  in  ob- 
taining bread  at  all,  because  at  that  time  it 
had  to  be  fetched,  with  tickets,  from  the  bakers' 
shops — a  process  which  involved  hours  of  wait- 
ing in  the  cold.  Various  forms  of  dyspepsia, 
and  even  of  organic  diseases,  were  brought  on 
by  bad  eating ;  inflammations  of  the  chest  were 
"numerous ;  but,  so  far  as  I  could  learn  on  the 
spot  (and  I  took  a  great  deal  of  trouble  to 
inquire,  at  the  time),  most  of  the  damage  done 
was  to  persons  of  previous  weak  health.  I 
must  say,  also,  that  the  consequences  did  not 
always  manifest  themselves  at  once, — in  many 
cases  they  appeared  months  afterwards ;  deaths 
from  illnesses  caused  by  the  siege  were  heard 
of  more  frequently  perhaps  in  1872  than  in 


76  SOME    MEMORIES    OF    PARIS. 

1871.  The  men  were  better  off  than  the 
women,  because,  during  the  whole  duration  of 
the  investment,  nearly  all  of  them  could  get 
two  francs  a-day  as  National  Guards,  while  the 
women  could  earn  nothing,  and  suffered,  con- 
sequently, more.  There  were,  of  course,  many 
cases  of  exceptional  distress ;  many  persons 
were  unable  to  digest,  or  even  to  swallow,  the 
abominable  bread  that  was  supplied  to  the 
public  during  the  concluding  weeks  (those  who 
could  afford  it  did  their  baking  at  home  with 
flour  they  had  laid  up  at  the  beginning,  or  else 
ate  rice  instead  of  bread)  :  of  course  the  scarcity 
of  fuel  and  the  bitter  cold  of  the  winter  of 
1870  added  to  the  suffering;  but  that  suffering, 
though  occasionally  intense,  was  not  universal, 
and,  especially,  it  never  presented  the  character 
of  true  siege  famine.  Another  fortnight  would 
have  produced  that  famine ;  but  the  capitu- 
lation was  signed  in  time,  and,  taking  the 
population  as  a  whole  and  putting  aside  the 
exceptions,  Paris  went  through  only  the  earliest 
stages  of  the  consequences  of  a  prolonged  in- 
vestment. Occasional  instances  of  acute  misery 
cannot  be  counted  for  anything  under  such 
circumstances  and  amidst  so  vast  a  population. 
Considering  what  war  really  is,  what  it  really 


ENGLISH    FOOD    GIFTS    AFTER   THE    SIEGE.       77 

means,  and  what  it  may  entail,  Paris  made 
scarcely  any  acquaintance  with  its  limitless 
horrors.  There  was  a  good  deal  of  illness,  but 
no  general  starvation  properly  so-called.  For  a 
city  of  brightness  and  pleasure  the  trial  was 
very  painful  and  humiliating ;  but  for  a  be- 
leaguered fortress  it  could  scarcely  be  regarded 
as  a  true  siege.  As  a  moral  and  material  hardship 
inflicted  suddenly  on  people  who  had  always 
lived  in  insouciance,  the  imprisonment  was  ex- 
tremely worrying  and  painful ;  but  as  a  military 
operation,  involving  possibly  all  the  frightful 
followings  of  battle,  it  induced,  comparatively, 
very  few  woes  at  all.  The  situation  might  have 
been  so  immeasurably  worse  than  it  was,  that 
it  cannot  be  regarded  as  having  been  thorough- 
ly bad. 

At  the  immediate  moment,  however,  nothing 
of  this  truth  was  known ;  the  facts  only  came 
out  by  slow  degrees.  The  exact  contrary,  in- 
deed, was  believed  outside.  And  that  was  why 
the  world  wept  for  Paris,  and  why  the  English 
of  the  period  desired  to  aid  in  mitigating  her 
sorrows. 

The  capitulation  and  the  armistice  were 
signed  about  27th  January,  and  on  4th  Feb- 
ruary (if  I  remember  correctly)  Colonel  Stuart 


78  SOME    MEMORIES    OF    PARIS. 

Wortley  and  Mr  George  Moore  arrived  in 
Paris  as  delegates  of  the  Lord  Mayor's  Com- 
mittee, bringing  with  them  a  first  small  supply 
of  stores.  They  set  themselves  at  once  to  pre- 
pare for  the  distribution  of  "  the  English  gifts" 
that  were  following  them,  formed  a  Paris  Com- 
mittee to  help  in  the  work,  and  were  good 
enough  to  ask  me  to  join  it.  I  had  just  come 
in  from  Versailles,  where  I  had  passed  the  siege 
time :  I  was  very  curious  to  see  with  my  own 
eyes  the  state  of  Paris,  and  was  particularly 
glad  of  this  opportunity  to  examine,  in  a  special 
and  practical  form,  the  condition  of  things 
inside.  The  work  on  that  Committee  made  me 
acquainted  with  details  which  I  could  scarcely 
have  got  to  know  in  any  other  way,  and  my 
recollection  of  it  enables  me  to  tell  some  of 
the  points  of  a  story  which  at  the  time  attracted 
much  attention,  but  which  is  now,  I  presume, 
almost  forgotten. 

Our  Committee  had  nothing  to  do  with  the 
transport  of  the  stores  to  Paris ;  its  function 
was  limited  to  their  distribution  when  they  got 
there.  I  knew,  therefore,  nothing,  except  in 
a  very  general  way,  about  the  difficulties  of  car- 
riage and  the  labour  of  surmounting  them;  I 
remember  only  that  great  energy  was  employed, 


ENGLISH    FOOD    GIFTS    AFTER   THE    SIEGE.       79 

that  much  credit  was  due  to  those  who  had 
charge  of  the  forwarding  from  the  ports,  and 
that  Colonel  Wortley  and  Mr  Moore  were 
indefatigable.  Their  first  act  was  to  organise 
depots  all  over  the  town,  especially  in  the  poorer 
districts.  I  forget  how  many  there  were,  but 
I  am  under  the  impression  that  the  number 
was  between  a  dozen  and  twenty.  There  were, 
frequently,  delays  in  conveying  the  stores  from 
the  railway  station  to  the  depots,  because  of 
the  scarcity  of  horses ;  and  the  unpacking 
and  division  into  portions-  for  each  applicant 
took  up  a  good  deal  of  time.  If  we  could  have 
given  a  whole  cheese  to  one,  a  whole  ham  to 
a  second,  a  box  of  biscuits  to  a  third,  and  a 
bag  of  coffee  to  a  fourth,  and  have  left  them 
to  settle  the  sharing  between  them,  we  should 
have  got  on  much  faster;  but,  as  it  was,  we 
were  often  forced  to  keep  the  people  waiting 
while  hundreds  of  heaps  of  varied  provisions, 
in  a  transportable  condition,  were  prepared  in 
rows.  When  once  that  was  done,  the  handing 
out  went  on  very  fast.  At  each  depot  a  staff 
was  installed,  and,  during  the  earlier  days, 
the  task  of  giving  went  on  uninterruptedly, 
even  at  night.  Paris  knew  within  twenty-four 
hours  that  food  was  to  be  had  for  the  asking, 


8o  SOME    MEMORIES    OF    PARIS. 

and  Paris  came  in  crowds  to  ask  for  it.  The 
crowds,  in  themselves,  supplied  no  reliable  testi- 
mony of  the  existence  of  great  want,  for  they 
would  appear  again  to-day,  in  equal  numbers, 
if  food  were  once  more  offered  for  nothing ;  but 
in  their  aspect  and  their  composition  there  were 
details  which  showed,  in  some  degree  at  least, 
that  the  nature  of  the  occasion  was  special. 
Again,  the  food  was,  of  necessity,  distributed 
haphazard,  and  the  process  in  itself  revealed 
little  on  the  surface ;  but  on  the  rare  occasions 
when  it  was  possible  to  penetrate  into  it,  to 
learn  the  secrets  of  the  starvelings,  and  to  dis- 
cover the  personal  causes  which  led  them  to 
come  and  beg,  it  assumed  a  totally  different 
character,  and  became  at  moments  intensely 
interesting. 

For  many  days  I  passed  a  considerable  por- 
tion of  my  time  in  the  depots,  or  outside  them 
talking  to  the  waiting  mob,  and  I  heard  a  quantity 
of  tales  of  suffering,  the  majority  of  which  were, 
I  fancy  (judging  from  the  manner  of  telling, 
or  from  the  nature  of  the  statements),  mainly 
imaginary,  while  some  few  of  them  were,  I 
daresay,  painfully  true.  I  repeat,  however, 
before  narrating  stories,  that  I  regarded  the 
authentic  ones  as  exceptions,  and  that  the 


ENGLISH   FOOD   GIFTS   AFTER   THE    SIEGE.       8l 

famine  provoked  by  the  siege  alone,  and  not 
by  general  or  accidental  causes,  was  not  so 
serious  as  the  European  public  had  supposed. 
Other  witnesses  may,  possibly,  hold  a  precisely 
contrary  opinion :  I  speak  solely  for  myself, 
after  a  careful  study  of  the  situation,  so  far 
as  I  could  measure  it,  and  after  diligent  inquiry 
amongst  those  who  were  best  placed  to  know 
the  facts. 

The  first  depot  opened  was  somewhere  near 
the  Church  of  Notre  Dame  des  Victoires ;  and, 
as  it  was  the  first,  the  rush  to  it  was  great. 
The  column  of  people  was  indeed  so  long  that 
it  stretched,  six  or  eight  thick,  almost  a  quarter 
of  a  mile  away,  past  the  Bourse.  Several  of  us 
went  down  on  the  first  evening  and  found  men 
and  women  standing  or  sitting  on  the  pave- 
ments, a  few  with  wraps,  many  without.  Vari- 
ous classes  were  represented  amongst  them : 
some  looked  not  only  respectable,  but  almost 
as  if  they  belonged  to  the  lower  middle  strata ; 
the  vast  majority,  however,  were  the  poorest 
of  the  poor,  and  seemed  wretchedly  unfit,  with 
their  tattered  clothes,  to  support  twelve  or  fif- 
teen hours  of  waiting  in  the  bitter  air.  It  was 
so  dark  (there  was  no  gas,  for  the  reason  that 
there  was  no  coal  to  make  it  with)  that  we  could 

F 


82  SOME    MEMORIES   OF   PARIS. 

not  see  clearly ;  but  our  eyes  had  grown  some- 
what accustomed  to  the  gloom,  and  we  were 
able,  on  looking  closely,  to  perceive  approxi- 
mately the  features  of  the  people,  and  some- 
times the  expressions  of  their  faces.  As  we 
peered  into  the  thicknesses  of  the  crowd  and 
sought  for  revelations  of  the  nature  of  its 
elements,  a  lady  with  us — Madame  de  V.— 
happened  to  notice  a  woman  leaning  wearily 
against  a  lamp-post.  She  spoke  to  her,  and 
was  told  one  of  the  usual  stories  of  children 
starving,  a  drunken  husband,  no  fire,  and  no 
food ;  and  as  she  looked  nearer  still,  she  became 
aware  that  the  woman  was  far  advanced  in 
pregnancy,  seemed  miserably  weak,  and  was 
assuredly  in  no  condition  to  pass  a  night  on 
the  icy  stones.  So,  after  exchanging  a  few 
words  with  Colonel  Wortley,  Madame  de  V. 
said  to  the  woman  in  a  low  voice,  in  order  that 
the  others  might  not  hear,  "  I  know  the  English 
people  who  are  distributing  the  food,  and  as 
you  are  so  unfit  to  await  your  turn,  I  have 
obtained  permission  from  them  to  go  into  the 
depot  and  to  bring  you  out  some  provisions. 
Wait  at  this  lamp -post  till  I  come  back." 
Then,  after  taking  a  few  steps  towards  the 
depot,  it  occurred  to  Madame  de  V.  that  she 


ENGLISH    FOOD    GIFTS    AFTER   THE    SIEGE.       83 

had  nothing  in  which  to  carry  loaves  and  meat ; 
so  she  went  back  to  the  woman  and  whispered 
to  her,  "Give  me  your  apron  to  bring  it  in." 
At  this  proposal  the  woman  shrank  back  sus- 
piciously, thinking  evidently  that  it  was  a  mere 
trick  to  steal  her  apron ;  whereon  Madame  de 
V.  went  on,  with  ready  thought,  "  And  as  I 
shall  need  both  my  hands  to  hold  the  corners 
of  the  apron,  I  will  ask  you  to  be  so  kind  as  to 
keep  my  muff  for  me  while  I  am  gone."  This 
pacified  the  woman,  for  she  had  sense  enough  to 
recognise  that  a  sable  muff  was  worth  more  than 
a  blue  apron  ;  so  she  untied  the  strings,  mutter- 
ing, "  Well,  I  hope  it's  all  right ;  but  don't  be 
long."  Ten  minutes  afterwards  Madame  de  V. 
was  back  again  with  as  heavy  a  weight  as  her 
arms  could  carry,  and  then  a  new  difficulty  arose. 
The  woman  in  her  eagerness  almost  flung  the 
muff  at  its  owner,  seized  the  bundle  feverishly, 
did  not  stop  to  thank,  and  hurried  off;  but  the 
neighbours  in  the  crowd,  observing  what  had 
happened,  claimed  noisily,  almost  brutally,  the 
same  privilege,  declaring  that  it  was  a  shame 
to  do  for  one  what  was  not  done  for  all,  and 
asserting  that  the  woman  had  no  rights  superior 
to  theirs.  As  they  began  to  grow  threatening, 
and  as  there  were  no  police,  two  or  three  of 


84  SOME    MEMORIES   OF    PARIS. 

us  stood  in  between  them  and  Madame  de  V., 
while  others  got  her  away,  pursued  by  abuse, 
into  the  shelter  of  the  depot.  The  incident 
was  not  pleasant,  but  it  gave  us  the  measure 
of  some  of  the  characters  we  had  to  deal  with, 
and  it  supplied  new  evidence  in  support  of  the 
theory  (which  is  so  widely  held)  that  it  is  folly 
to  be  kind. 

Inside  the  depot  the  sight  was  curious.  It 
was  our  first  experience,  and  we  all  looked  on 
intently.  The  people  came  in,  singly,  through 
one  door,  and  passed  out  at  another;  and,  as 
each  man  or  woman  advanced  suddenly  into 
the  light,  the  astonishing  variety  of  their  ex- 
pressions struck  us  all.  Many  looked  so 
brokenly  fagged  that  their  faces  had  lost  all 
other  meaning;  others,  on  the  contrary,  had 
become  uncontrollably  excited ;  some  were 
savage  with  ill  -  temper,  and  some  trembling 
with  joy;  some  were  sullen,  and  some  were 
eager;  the  eyes  of  some  stared  at  us  scowl  - 
ingly  and  defiantly ;  the  eyes  of  others  bright- 
ened gluttonously  as  they  caught  sight  of  the 
piles  of  biscuits,  cheeses,  and  hams,  and  the 
packets  of  coffee  and  sugar ;  some  (a  very  small 
minority)  thanked  enthusiastically,  with  tears 
in  their  eyes ;  others  grasped  almost  fiercely 


ENGLISH    FOOD   GIFTS   AFTER  THE    SIEGE.       85 

the  objects  handed  to  them,  and  rushed  out 
into  the  darkness  to  begin  munching.  On  the 
whole,  it  was  a  distressing  sight,  and  I  imagine 
that  we  all  went  to  bed  that  night  with  an 
uncomfortable  sensation  in  our  throats. 

On  other  occasions,  in  the  daytime,  I  was 
able  to  look  with  more  scrutiny  and  more  fruit 
at  the  composition  of  the  waiting  crowd,  and 
my  general  impression  was  that  it  was  more 
miserable,  more  ill-conditioned,  and,  especially, 
more  evil-faced,  than  even  the  dirtiest  crowds 
usually  are.  A  good  many  persons  in  it  were 
relatively  decent ;  honesty  and  goodness — mixed 
with  anxiety  and  fatigue — could  be  perceived 
in  the  features  of  several  of  its  members ;  but 
the  general  effect  produced  by  it  was  one  of 
extreme  wretchedness ;  and,  worse  than  all, 
it  contained,  here  and  there,  some  of  those 
strangely  awful  faces  —  the  faces  of  habitual 
criminals  —  which,  when  perceived  suddenly, 
almost  choke  those  who  catch  sight  of  them. 
In  some  Paris  prisons,  and  in  all  Paris  street- 
fightings,  I  had  beheld,  with  bewilderment  and 
horror,  an  infamy  of  expression  in  many  coun- 
tenances which  exceeded  all  that  imagination 
usually  conceives.  In  the  ordinary  conditions 
of  life  such  faces  are  never  to  be  found  in  Paris ; 


86  SOME    MEMORIES   OF   PARIS. 

it  is  only  in  jails  and  during  revolutions  that 
they  can  be  seen  in  any  numbers ;  and  it  was 
behind  bars  or  barricades  that  I  had  perceived 
them  so  far.  Yet  there  they  were  in  the  street, 
physiognomies  so  appallingly  depraved,  so  be- 
fouled with  degradations  and  defilements,  so 
denaturalised  by  hideous  appetites,  that  gorillas 
would  have  seemed  angels  of  purity  beside 
them,  —  physiognomies  that,  without  actually 
staring  at  them,  no  one  could  have  supposed 
possible  in  man.  They  could  not  be  described 
as  animal,  for  no  animal  is  capable  of  expressing 
such  pollution  or  of  exhibiting  such  vice ;  they 
had  a  meaning  which  humanity  alone,  dragged 
down  to  its  deepest  corruption,  can  convey. 
Well,  in  the  crowds  awaiting  food  those  faces 
were  rather  frequently  represented  :  I  saw  them 
there  in  the  open  air  for  the  first  time — except 
during  a  revolution.  Of  course,  they  were  not 
really  abundant ;  but  the  excessiveness  of  their 
horror,  so  infinitely  more  out  of  place  in  the 
brightness  of  sunlight  than  in  the  darkness  of 
prison  or  amidst  the  violence  of  a  riot,  seemed 
to  multiply  them,  until,  in  a  waking  nightmare, 
I  saw  them  everywhere.  There  they  were,  in 
liberty  and  peace,  conditions  which,  till  then, 
I  had  never  associated  with  them;  and  they 


ENGLISH    FOOD   GIFTS   AFTER  THE    SIEGE.       87 

showed  no  shame.  Their  right  to  the  "  Eng- 
lish gifts  "  was  as  real  as  that  of  all  the  others  ; 
and  yet  the  others,  even  the  most  wretched  of 
them,  shrank  instinctively  away  from  them,  and 
left  around  them  a  ring  of  empty  space.  But 
the  creatures  with  those  faces  did  not  perceive 
their  solitude, — they  did  not  even  seek  to  collect 
together  and  support  each  other :  each  one  of 
them  stood  apart,  alone ;  from  each  of  them 
seemed  to  exude  a  separate  and  distinct  atmos- 
phere of  abomination.  As  I  watched  them,  a 
friend  whispered  to  me,  "  Where  do  those  gentle- 
men live  when  they  are  at  home  ?  I  should  like 
to  know,  so  as  not  to  call  on  them." 

The  spectacle  of  the  weary  column  was  so 
saddening  that  it  did  not  need  the  additional 
impress  of  the  presence  of  those  monsters.  Yet 
there  they  were,  and  there  was  no  disputing 
their  title  to  be  there.  The  food  was  for  any- 
body who  chose  to  ask  for  it :  they  asked.  It 
will  be  a  comparative  relief  to  my  memory  to 
begin  talking  again  about  the  depots. 

Yet  the  scenes  in  them  were  neither  varied 
nor  agreeable ;  they  were,  indeed,  both  mono- 
tonous and  disagreeable,  and,  after  the  first 
effect  upon  us  had  worn  off,  we  looked  on  at 
them  with  weariness  of  spirit.  It  did  not 


88  SOME    MEMORIES   OF    PARIS. 

suffice  to  keep  up  our  attention  to  tell  ourselves 
that  the  men  were  French  electors,  and  there- 
fore politically  our  equals ;  that  the  women 
were  wives  and  mothers  (or,  at  all  events, 
daughters),  and  our  fellow-beings ;  and  that 
all  of  them  deserved  our  sympathy  because 
they  were  hungry :  we  did  not,  when  a  day 
or  two  had  passed,  find  those  considerations 
effective.  We  discovered  we  were  there  to 
discharge  a  duty,  not  to  satisfy  a  curiosity, 
and  the  duty  became  ugly.  Never  did  I  per- 
ceive so  clearly  the  value  of  curiosity  as  a 
stimulant  and  encouragement.  As  it  faded 
away,  that  mob,  which,  at  the  beginning,  had 
seemed  to  me  so  full  of  the  promise  of  inter- 
esting discoveries,  assumed  more  and  more  its 
proper  aspect  of  dirty  misery  and  uninstructive 
repulsiveness :  it  told  me  nothing,  and  it  smelt 
very  nasty.  And  I  could  not  disguise  from 
myself  that  it  lowered  my  idea  of  humanity, 
and  that  it  became  unpleasant  to  me  to  re- 
cognise that,  after  all,  I  was  identical  with 
those  repellent  persons,  and  was  differentiated 
from  them  solely  by  the  accident  that  I  had 
received  an  education  and  they  had  not.  For- 
tunately I  had  not  much  time  to  indulge  my 
disagreeable  sensations;  but  I  mention  them 


ENGLISH    FOOD    GIFTS    AFTER   THE    SIEGE.       89 

because  they  formed  part  of  the  day's  work, 
and  because  they  showed  that  some  training 
is  needed  (in  many  cases,  at  all  events)  to  fit 
us  to  endure  contact  with  filth  and  unwhole- 
someness.  Those  processions  through  the  de- 
pots were  distinctly  trying,  and,  with  individual 
exceptions,  distinctly  tiresome.  Now  that  I 
have  sufficiently  described  their  main  features, 
I  can  turn  away  from  them,  and  can  begin  to 
talk  of  the  more  attractive  subject  of  individual 
exceptions. 

One  of  the  most  important  of  these  depots 
was  installed  in  the  then  unfinished  shop  of 
the  Bon  Marche,  which  had  been  built  just 
before  the  war  broke  out.  The  proprietor  of 
the  establishment — M.  Aristide  Boucicaut,  who 
was  an  excellent  man,  as  well  as  a  prodigious 
linen-draper — had  offered  the  use  of  his  great 
ground  -  floor,  with  a  special  entrance  at  the 
angle  opposite  the  end  of  the  Rue  de  Sevres, 
where  there  was  a  large  open  place.  As  the 
neighbourhood  was  poor  and  populous,  a  con- 
siderable supply  of  food  was  accumulated  there, 
in  anticipation  of  a  large  crowd,  and  public 
notice  was  given  of  the  moment  at  which  the 
distribution  would  commence.  More  than 
twenty  -  four  hours  before  the  hour  named 


90  SOME    MEMORIES   OF   PARIS. 

people  began  to  collect  at  the  corner,  and 
when  the  morning  came  the  entire  space  was 
filled  with  a  restless  crowd,  the  greater  part 
of  which  had  passed  the  night  there.  There 
must  have  been  ten  thousand  persons  assembled, 
two-thirds  of  whom  were  women.  About  eleven 
o'clock  the  members  of  the  Committee  reached 
the  Bon  Marche,  and  were  joined  by  several 
friends.  The  first  news  given  to  us  was  that 
the  impatience  of  the  mob  was  growing  danger- 
ous, and,  especially,  that  the  pressure  at  the 
corner  was  so  violent  that,  if  it  could  not  be 
relieved,  .there  would  inevitably  be  accidents. 
Unfortunately,  the  preparations  for  distribution 
were  not  complete :  another  hour  was  needed 
before  a  sufficient  number  of  portions  could  be 
got  ready,  and  the  question  was  how  to  hold 
the  people  steady  in  the  interval.  Some  of 
us  went  to  the  window  on  the  first  floor  and 
looked  out.  It  was  an  ugly  and  a  painful 
sight.  The  instant  we  appeared,  thousands  of 
white  faces,  some  furious,  some  beseeching, 
turned  up  to  us,  and  cries  arose  that  we  were 
deceiving  them,  that  the  hour  was  past,  and 
that  they  ought  to  be  let  in.  Screams  of 
terrified,  half- stifled  women  rang  through  the 
air,  as  the  mob  swayed  and  surged.  There 


ENGLISH    FOOD    GIFTS   AFTER   THE    SIEGE.       gi 

were  half  a  dozen  of  us  at  that  window,  star- 
ing at  the  sight,  but  the  only  two  that  I  re- 
member were  Laurence  Oliphant  and  Mr  Lan- 
dells,  the  artist  of  the  '  Illustrated  London 
News':  there  were  two  or  three  of  the  Em- 
bassy as  well,  but  I  forget  which  of  them.  We 
shouted  to  the  people,  entreating  them  to 
stand  still,  and  promising  that  the  door  should 
be  opened  the  instant  we  were  ready ;  but 
they  could  not  hear  for  the  noise  they  were 
making,  and  we  grew  more  and  more  certain 
that  some  of  them  would  be  crushed  if  we  could 
find  no  means  of  making  them  stand  back. 
While  we  were  hesitating  what  to  do,  we  saw 
that  a  woman  had  fallen  beneath  the  window 
and  was  being  trampled  on.  Thereon  we  all 
ran  anxiously  down-stairs ;  M.  Boucicaut  man- 
aged to  force  open  the  upper  half  of  the  iron 
shutter  of  the  ground-floor  corner  window,  and 
he  and  I  scrambled  on  to  the  top  of  some 
empty  cases,  so  as  to  be  able  to  look  out  above 
the  mob  and  try  to  save  the  woman.  Directly 
we  put  our  heads  out,  some  eight  feet  from 
the  ground,  we  beheld  just  under  us,  between 
the  people,  portions  of  what  looked  like  a 
bundle  of  rags  mixed  with  arms  and  legs,  the 
others  stamping  on  it  from  sheer  impossibility 


92  SOME    MEMORIES    OF    PARIS. 

of  resisting  the  thrust  from  behind.  It  was 
sickening  to  see  the  poor  creature  killed  under 
our  eyes  in  that  way,  and  we  roared  out  sup- 
plications to  the  mob  to  spare  her  and  to  hold 
back,  if  only  for  an  instant,  while  she  was 
lifted  out.  In  some  strange  way,  by  a  fierce 
effort  of  the  front  ranks,  there  came  two  seconds 
of  recoil ;  three  other  women  got  space  enough 
to  stoop  and  to  pick  up  the  lamentable  bundle, 
and,  stretching  out  our  arms  till  we  nearly  fell 
out  of  the  window  ourselves,  we  managed  to 
get  hold  of  it  and  to  bring  it  up  to  our  level, 
the  nearer  portions  of  the  crowd  cheering  as 
we  got  it  in.  A  moment  later  we  were  on  the 
floor  with  our  burden,  and  laid  it  on  a  counter. 
It  was  a  youngish  woman,  white,  insensible, 
bleeding  from  small  cuts,  covered  with  dirt, 
her  clothes  in  pieces.  We  bathed  her  face  and 
hands,  and,  after  a  while,  got  her  round,  so 
far  at  least  that  she  could  begin  to  speak  a 
little.  At  first  she  was  only  dimly  conscious, 
and  very  breathless,  and  seemed  bewildered 
with  terror;  but  by  degrees  she  became  calm, 
gained  a  little  strength,  and  told  us  she  had 
passed  thirty  hours  standing  at  that  corner, 
had  felt  the  pressure  gradually  increasing,  and, 
suddenly,  had  known  no  more.  We  gave  her 


ENGLISH    FOOD    GIFTS    AFTER   THE    SIEGE.        93 

cold  beef- tea  (the  only  liquid  food  we  had), 
with  bread  soaked  in  it,  and,  as  soon  as  she 
was  able  to  stand,  got  up  a  little  subscription 
for  her  amongst  ourselves,  filled  a  basket  with 
various  food,  and  when,  after  an  hour  of  rest, 
she  had  grown  comparatively  strong,  sent  her 
on  her  way  by  another  door. 

By  the  time  she  was  gone  everything  was 
at  last  ready,  and  the  door  was  opened.  The 
first  rush  rather  overpowered  us :  the  pushing 
was  violent ;  the  weaker  were  thrown  down ; 
but,  on  the  whole,  the  people  behaved  well, 
and  waited  for  their  turn  without  too  much 
complaint. 

And  now  I  am  going  to  tell  the  story  of 
the  woman  we  dragged  in,  for  the  reason  that 
it  supplies  an  example  of  a  really  bad  case 
brought  about  by  the  siege  alone,  and  shows 
exactly  what  was  the  nature  and  the  course  of 
the  siege  distress,  when  that  distress  was  real. 
I  felt,  instinctively,  a  sort  of  personal  respon- 
sibility about  that  woman,  and  had  a  vague 
impression  that,  as  I  Jiad  helped  somewhat  to 
save  her  life,  I  ought  not  to  stop  there,  but 
was  bound  to  go  on  and  to  try  to  discover 
what  her  needs  were,  and  whether  anything 
practical  could  be  done  for  her.  I  had  asked  for 


94  SOME    MEMORIES    OF    PARIS. 

her  address,  privately,  when  nobody  was  near, 
and  next  morning,  without  telling  any  one  of 
my  intention,  I  went  to  her.  On  my  way  I 
was  oppressed  by  a  peculiar  sensation  of  awk- 
wardness, almost  indeed  of  shame,  such  as  is 
experienced,  I  have  been  told,  by  most  people 
when  they  attempt  for  the  first  time  to  per- 
form "good  works."  I  certainly  had  never 
done  a  "good  work"  in  my  life,  and  I  well 
remember  how  nervously  I  hoped  that  nobody 
would  suspect  me,  and  that  I  should  not  be 
found  out.  I  can  talk  about  it  tranquilly  now, 
but  at  the  time  I  felt  like  a  culprit  on  the 
point  of  being  arrested.  The  woman  lived  in 
the  Rue  St  Jacques,  on  a  fifth  floor,  in  a  poor 
but  decent  house.  When  I  got  up  to  her  door 
my  feeling  of  timidity  and  clumsiness  increased. 
I  felt  stupidly  bashful,  reproached  myself  for 
coming  at  all,  and  was  strongly  tempted  to  go 
away.  I  recollect  that  I  found  consolation 
solely  in  the  fact  that  no  one  met  me  on  the 
stairs.  I  stared  for -a  moment  at  the  bell  (I  can 
see  it  still :  it  was  a  little  brass  chain,  with  a 
chamois-foot  hanging  at  the  end),  and,  finally, 
rang  it  with  a  somewhat  convulsive  effort.  The 
situation  was  so  new  to  me  that  all  the  details 
are  impressed  on  my  memory.  No  one  came, 


ENGLISH    FOOD    GIFTS   AFTER   THE    SIEGE.       95 

but  I  heard  a  faint  cry  of  "  Entrez,"  and  I 
opened  the  door.  In  a  large  but  almost  empty 
room  my  acquaintance  of  the  day  before  was 
lying  on  a  bed.  She  blushed  violently,  rose 
hastily,  and  began  to  excuse  herself,  saying  that 
she  had  supposed  it  was  the  concierge.  She  was 
evidently  extremely  uncomfortable,  but  I  cannot 
believe  that  she  was  half  so  uneasy  as  I  was. 
I  had  prepared  a  speech,  but  it  faded  out  of 
my  head,  and  all  I  could  do  was  to  beg  her  to 
forgive  me  for  coming,  and  to  pretend  that 
I  wanted  to  know  how  she  was ;  and  then, 
abruptly — rather  roughly,  I  fear — I  asked  her 
to  tell  me  the  details  of  her  life  during  the  siege. 
She  seemed  surprised  at  my  request,  and  un- 
willing to  comply  with  it ;  but  by  degrees,  in  a 
disorderly  fashion,  she  did  confess  what  I  wanted 
to  know.  Here  is  the  substance  of  the  story 
I  got  out  of  her. 

She  had  been  an  artificial  -  flower  -  maker, 
with  abundant  occupation.  She  had  indeed 
developed  such  a  particular  capacity  for  the 
manufacture  of  tea-roses,  that  she  had  obtained 
for  the  two  preceding  years  almost  the  exclusive 
supply  of  three  of  the  large  shops,  employed  two 
girls  to  help  her,  and  earned  the  high  average 
profit  of  ten  francs  a-day.  Being  a  thrifty 


96  SOME    MEMORIES   OF   PARIS. 

woman,  she  laid  by  money,  and  had  bought 
four  debentures  of  the  Northern  Railway,  which 
brought  her  in  an  income  of  more  than  two 
guineas  a-year — "a  beginning  of  a  fortune,"  as 
she  observed,  with  a  faint  smile.  When  the  war 
broke  out  she  did  not  realise  its  meaning ;  she 
supposed  it  would  be  over  in  a  few  weeks,  and, 
as  she  had  two  hundred  francs  in  a  corner  of  a 
drawer,  felt  quite  safe  about  money,  even  if  her 
work  remained  stopped  for  a  while.  But  prices 
went  up  so  fast  and  so  high  that  the  two  hun- 
dred francs  were  gone  in  a  month.  Then  she  be- 
gan to  sell  the  railway  debentures  at  a  great  loss, 
and  this  product  disappeared  also  very  quickly. 
So  by  the  end  of  the  second  month  she  had  to 
turn  her  clothes  and  furniture  into  such  cash  as 
they  would  fetch,  and  at  last,  in  December,  she 
found  herself  entirely  destitute,  with  scarcely 
anything  left  except  her  bed  and  the  gown  and 
shawl  she  wore.  Happily,  as  the  payment  of 
rent  had  been  suspended  by  the  Government 
at  the  commencement  of  the  siege,  the  landlord 
could  not  turn  her  out  for  default,  and  she  was 
able  for  the  moment  to  remain  in  her  room. 
Then  came  the  worst  part  of  all — the  waiting, 
for  hours  a  day  in  bitter  cold,  at  the  baker's 
door  for  her  pittance  of  black  tallowy  bread  that 


ENGLISH    FOOD   GIFTS   AFTER  THE    SIEGE.       97 

made  her  ill.  A  cough  began  ;  she  grew  weak  ; 
and  when  at  last  the  investment  was  over,  she 
was  exhausted  in  body,  in  mind,  and  in  purse, 
and  was,  furthermore,  haunted  by  the  terror 
that  in  a  short  time  the  protection  about  rent 
would  come  to  an  end,  that  her  arrears  would 
be  due,  and  that  she  would  be  turned  into  the 
street.  Then  she  heard  that  food  (not  the  nasti- 
ness  of  the  siege,  but  real  white  bread!)  was 
going  to  be  given  away  for  nothing  at  the  Bon 
Marche,  and  she  was  one  of  the  first  to  take  a 
place  at  that  corner  door. 

She  told  me  all  this  very  disjointedly,  with  a 
great  deal  of  hesitation  and  of  evident  dislike 
to  talk  about  herself  to  a  stranger,  but  with  an 
air  of  truth  that  convinced  me.  I  learnt  from 
her  also  that  she  was  known  to  one  of  the  cur- 
ates of  the  parish  of  St  Jacques  du  Haut  Pas, 
so,  on  leaving  her,  I  went  straight  to  him  and 
asked  him  what  he  could  tell  me  about  her. 
He  happened  to  be  a  very  noble  specimen  of  a 
priest,  full  of  practical  common -sense,  and  of 
infinite  experience  of  the  forms  of  pain.  He 
informed  me  that  he  had  been  acquainted  with 
the  woman  for  some  years,  and  that  her  story 
was  perfectly  exact  so  far  as  it  went,  but  that 
there  was  a  good  deal  more  behind.  First,  that 

G 


9  SOME   MEMORIES    OF    PARIS. 

she  had  a  drag  upon  her  in  the  shape  of  a 
paralysed  old  aunt,  who  was  finishing  her  days 
somewhere  in  Auvergne,  and  to  whom  she  had 
paid  a  pension  of  a  franc  a-day.  Secondly,  that, 
although  she  managed  to  lay  by  money,  she 
had  always  some  to  give  to  those  who  were 
poorer  than  herself,  and  that,  during  the  siege, 
she  had  shared  her  savings  and  the  product  of 
her  sales  with  any  one  who  needed  help.  Third- 
ly, that  her  health  had  become  so  weakened, 
and  the  moral  impression  on  her  of  the  events 
that  had  passed  around  her  had  been  so  dam- 
aging, that  he  feared  she  would  have  great 
difficulty  in  recovering  strength,  and  that  he 
was  trying  to  get  money  from  charitable  persons 
in  order  to  send  her  (and  others)  to  the  seaside, 
for  change  and  rest. 

He  gave  me  also  a  good  deal  of  detail  about 
the  sufferings  of  which  he  had  been  a  spectator 
during  the  siege,  and  added  strength  to  the  im- 
pression I  had  already  begun  to  form,  that  there 
had  been  no  general  starvation.  He  told  me,  of 
course,  of  many  people  who  were,  more  or  less, 
in  want,  and  asked  me  to  take  a  list  of  women 
to  whom  food  could  be  supplied  privately,  with 
the  certainty  that  it  was  both  needed  and  de- 
served ;  and  then,  when  I  begged  to  be  allowed 


ENGLISH    FOOD   GIFTS   AFTER   THE    SIEGE.       99 

to  contribute  my  mite  to  the  necessities  around 
him,  refused  to  accept  anything  from  me,  saying 
that  the  English  had  done  quite  enough  in 
organising  the  food  gifts. 

By  the  time  our  conversation  came  to  an  end, 
I  had  pretty  nearly  got  over  my  sheepishness, 
and  was  beginning,  with  the  sudden  ardour  of  a 
neophyte,  to  be  immensely  interested  in  "good 
works,"  which,  like  many  others,  I  had  regarded 
until  then  from  the  top  of  my  indifference.  So, 
in  my  new  enthusiasm,  I  went  back  to  the  Hotel 
Chatham,  told  Oliphant  in  secrecy  the  story  of 
my  morning's  work,  and  consulted  him  as  to 
what  we  should  do  about  the  woman.  We 
devised  a  beautifully  constructed  little  plan, 
quite  within  our  small  powers  of  realisation,  and 
of  the  invention  of  which  we  felt  very  proud ; 
but,  alas !  we  were  unable  to  carry  it  into  exe- 
cution. The  poor  creature  became  too  ill  to 
leave  Paris ;  she  dragged  on  through  the  Com- 
mune, and  died  of  exhaustion  in  July.  At  all 
events  her  latter  days  were  calm,  and  not 
poisoned  by  money  worries.  We  two,  with  a 
group  of  her  own  friends  and  that  good  priest, 
saw  the  last  of  her  in  the  Montparnasse  Ceme- 
tery. Often  did  Oliphant  and  I  talk  together 
of  her  afterwards,  for  we  remembered  her  as  a 


100  SOME    MEMORIES   OF   PARIS. 

patient,  brave,  good  woman.  Yet  neither  of  us 
ever  told  her  story :  somehow  we  both  shrank 
from  speaking  of  it  to  others.  Now,  however, 
that  a  quarter  of  a  century  has  passed,  I  think 
I  may  venture,  with  deep  respect  for  the  mem- 
ory of  the  poor  flower-maker,  to  put  the  tale  in 
here,  because,  as  I  have  already  said,  it  supplies 
a  reliable  illustration  of  the  worst  consequences 
of  the  siege. 

The  experience  of  a  few  days,  and  the  rapid 
multiplication  of  the  demands  for  private  assist- 
ance, irrespective  of  the  public  distributions  at 
the  depots,  decided  Colonel  Wortley  and  the 
committee  to  open  a  special  store  for  the  issue 
of  provisions  by  ticket,  so  as  to  free  the  better 
class  of  poor  from  the  strain  and  shame  of  wait- 
ing in  the  streets.  A  convenient  place  was 
obtained  for  the  purpose  in  a  quiet  corner  near 
the  Boulevard  Malesherbes,  and  I  suspect  that 
much  more  real  good  was  done  there,  and  more 
true  suffering  soothed,  than  by  all  the  indis- 
criminate public  givings.  It  was,  of  course, 
extremely  difficult  to  obtain  information  about 
the  people  who  went  there,  for  in  most  cases 
the  tickets  were  placed  by  other  persons,  and 
we  had  no  more  means  of  following  out  the 
work  we  were  doing  than  in  the  ordinary  uni« 


ENGLISH   FOOD    GIFTS   AFTER  THE    SIEGE.      IOI 

versal  distributions ;  but  I  was  able  occasionally 
to  lift  up  a  corner  of  the  veil,  and  to  get  a 
glimpse  of  what  was  passing  underneath. 

Most  of  the  cases  of  this  category  about 
which  I  managed  to  collect  information  were 
of  the  ordinary  kind,  and  are  not  worth  describ- 
ing :  clerks  and  employes  of  all  sorts,  and  high- 
class  workmen  and  workwomen,  had  found 
their  pay  stopped,  had  exhausted  their  slender 
resources,  and  had  struggled  with  the  usual 
difficulties.  In  a  few  instances,  however,  the 
circumstances  were  special  and  grave,  only  I 
was  rarely  able  to  learn  the  whole  truth,  so  as 
to  have  an  entire  story  before  me,  and  can 
therefore  say  nothing  interesting  about  the 
majority  of  them.  So  far  as  I  can  recollect, 
there  were  but  two  of  which,  by  accident,  I 
heard  full  details,  and  which  were  sufficiently 
outside  the  ordinary  types  of  distress  for  it  to  be 
worth  while  to  tell  them  here. 

The  first  concerned  a  retired  artillery  officer, 
with  a  wife,  a  son,  and  a  daughter,  who  lived 
together  in  a  little  apartment  near  the  Place  de 
1'Europe.  Until  the  war  came  they  got  on 
fairly  well :  they  were  very  poor,  but  they  man- 
aged to  subsist  without  running  into  debt ;  the 
father  gave  lessons  in  mathematics,  the  son  was 


IO2  SOME    MEMORIES   OF    PARIS. 

clerk  in  a  bank,  the  daughter  taught  the  piano. 
The  siege  stopped  their  various  incomes :  the 
father's    little   pension    continued,    perhaps,    to 
be  paid  to  him,  but  of  that  I  am  not  certain ; 
all  the  rest  disappeared.     The  father,   old  and 
feeble  as  he  was,   offered  his    services   on   the 
ramparts ;  but  on  the  second  day,  in  getting  a 
gun  into  an  embrasure,  his  leg  was  broken  in 
two  places,  and   he  was  carried  to  a  hospital, 
where  he  remained  until  the  capitulation.     The 
son    became    a    National    Guard,    and     rarely 
showed  himself  to  his  mother  and  sister,  who, 
from  the  very  beginning  of  the  investment,  found 
themselves  alone.     In  their  case,  as  in  so  many 
others,  it  was  on  the  women  that  the  burden 
fell.      The  daughter  got  into  an  ambulance  as 
nurse ;  but  she  was  a  weakly  creature,  of  little 
courage,   with    susceptible    nerves,    and    when 
some  wounded  men  were  brought  in  after   the 
first  skirmish,  she  had  a  hysterical  attack,  and 
was  turned  out  by  the  doctors.     The  mother, 
who  also  was  a  weak  woman,  became  utterly 
upset     by     her     misfortunes,    reproached     the 
daughter  with    her  uselessness,    and    a   quarrel 
ensued,  whereon    the    daughter    ran    out    and 
threw  herself  into  the  Seine.     At  this  point  of 
the   tale   my   information    became    incomplete, 


ENGLISH    FOOD   GJ  KTS   AFTER   THE    SIEGE.       103 

and  I  did  not  learn  how  the  girl  was  saved ;  but 
saved  she  was,  and  was  taken  in  somewhere  by 
some  one  :  so  her  mother,  hearing  no  more  of 
her,  and  believing  her  to  be  dead,  lost  the  little 
reason  she  had,  and  was  put  into  a  lunatic 
asylum.  A  few  weeks  later  the  daughter  re- 
appeared at  her  home,  found  it  empty,  and  was 
told  her  mother  was  insane.  Thereon  she  too 
grew  demented,  and,  returning  to  the  river, 
drowned  herself  for  good.  Soon  afterwards  the 
son  disappeared,  and  it  was  never  known  what 
became  of  him.  So,  when  the  father  came  out 
of  hospital,  at  the  beginning  of  February,  he 
found  his  wife  mad,  his  daughter  dead,  and  his 
son  missing.  The  poor  man's  sorrow  was  terri- 
ble, and  as  he  had  no  means  of  subsistence,  his 
material  distress  also  was  extreme.  Happily, 
when  he  was  absolutely  without  food,  his  case 
became  known  to  some  one  who  was  in  com- 
munication with  the  English  committee;  tickets 
were  obtained  for  him,  and  so  long  as  the  distri- 
bution continued  (that  is  to  say,  till  about  the 
end  of  February,  I  think),  he  received  a  daily 
allowance.  I  heard  the  story  from  one  of  the 
men  employed  at  the  private  depot,  and  he  in- 
formed me  some  months  later  that  the  poor  man 
had  been  removed  into  the  country  by  kind 


104  SOME    MEMORIES   OF   PARIS. 

people,  and  that  he  was  to  live  on  his  pension, 
such  as  it  was.  But  he  was  alone ;  his  home 
and  family  were  gone.  Decidedly  the  siege 
had  been  hard  upon  him. 

In  the  second  case  a  designer  in  a  manufac- 
tory of  bronze  figures,  a  man  who  counted 
rather  as  an  artist  than  an  artisan,  and  who 
earned  easily  from  seventy  to  a  hundred  francs 
a-week  (but  who  had  lived  largely  and  had  laid 
by  nothing),  lost  his  eyes  six  months  before  the 
war,  by  an  accident  in  casting  a  statue,  and 
became  incapable  of  earning  his  bread.  His 
wife  was  dead,  but  he  had  two  sons  and  a 
daughter,  all  good  workers  and  doing  well,  and 
they  undertook  to  pay  him,  between  them,  an 
allowance  of  three  francs  a-day  until  he  could 
be  got  into  the  Blind  Asylum.  When  the  siege 
came  on,  the  sons  entered  the  National  Guard, 
and  one  of  them  was  killed — though  seemingly 
out  of  range — by  a  lost  bullet  in  the  first  skir- 
mish. As  the  other  son  had  no  longer  any  in- 
come other  than  his  pay  as  a  temporary  soldier, 
and  as  the  daughter — who,  being  tall  and  slight, 
had  been  a  lay  -  figure  for  the  exhibition  of 
mantles  and  fashions  in  the  rooms  of  one  of 
the  great  dressmakers — had  of  course  lost  her 
place  by  the  closing  of  the  establishment,  the 


ENGLISH    FOOD    GIFTS   AFTER   THE    SIEGE.       105 

father  and  daughter  were  left,  from  September, 
without  means  of  subsistence.  For  a  time, 
nevertheless,  they  managed  to  exist :  their  for- 
mer employers  gave  them  small  sums ;  other 
people  helped  them  somewhat ;  and  during  the 
first  few  weeks  they  scraped  on.  But  by  the 
end  of  October  these  aids  came  to  an  end,  and 
they  found  themselves  face  to  face  with  destitu- 
tion. Furthermore,  the  daughter  fell  ill ;  and 
to  make  the  situation  still  worse,  the  surviving 
son,  who  until  then  had  been  a  steady  fellow, 
took  to  drink,  like  so  many  others  during  the 
siege-time,  and  instead  of  being  a  help,  became 
an  additional  source  of  affliction  to  the  two  poor 
people.  As  none  of  them  had  any  religion,  they 
had  never  made  acquaintance  with  the  clergy  of 
their  parish,  and  could  not  apply  to  them  for 
assistance.  At  last  they  were  reduced  to  the 
humiliation  of  putting  down  their  names  at 
the  Bureau  de  Bienfaisance  at  the  mairie  of 
their  arrondissement — and  those  who  are  ac- 
quainted with  the  pride  of  most  of  the  skilled 
workmen  of  Paris,  and  with  the  horror  they 
have  of  public  charity,  will  know  that  they  must 
indeed  have  been  in  deep  distress  to  have  re- 
signed themselves  to  that  step.  Between  hunger, 
anxiety,  and  shame,  the  daughter  (who  had  been 


IO6  SOME    MEMORIES    OF    PARIS. 

a  very  smart,  almost  elegant  young  woman,  dis- 
charging in  perfection  her  function  of  wearing 
clothes  so  skilfully  as  to  tempt  buyers  with 
them)  fell  into  a  condition  of  nervous  prostra- 
tion, which,  at  last,  rendered  her  incapable  of 
walking.  And  there  they  were,  the  blind  father 
and  the  shattered  daughter,  alone  in  their  two 
rooms,  from  which,  happily,  as  I  have  already 
explained,  they  could  not  be  turned  out  while 
the  siege  lasted — waiting  for  death  to  put  an 
end  to  their  distress.  About  the  same  time, 
the  second  son,  weakened  by  intoxication,  caught 
typhoid  fever  and  died.  Suddenly,  unexpected 
aid  appeared.  A  girl,  who  had  been  employed 
by  the  same  dressmaker  as  the  daughter,  had 
been  sheltered  by  a  fairly  rich  old  lady,  to 
whom  her  mother  had  been  maid,  and  who, 
having  a  generous  heart,  was  looking  about  for 
deserving  people  to  assist.  The  girl  bethought 
herself  of  the  "  tryer-on,"  of  whose  deplorable 
situation  she  was  vaguely  aware,  and  went  to 
look  for  her.  She  found  her,  and  told  her  story 
to  the  old  lady,  who  went  at  once  to  see  her, 
and  undertook  to  provide  for  her.  A  period 
of  relief  followed  :  food,  fire,  and  medicines  were 
supplied  to  them,  and  they  began  to  look  with 
some  hope  to  the  future.  But  in  December  the 


ENGLISH    FOOD    GIFTS   AFTER   THE    SIEGE.       IO7 

old  lady  got  a  chill,  and  died  in  three  days ; 
whereon  the  situation  of  the  father  and  daughter 
became  even  worse  than  before,  because  of  the 
fierce  cold,  against  which  they  could  not  battle. 
The  other  girl  (who  continued  to  be  cared  for 
by  the  relatives  of  the  old  lady)  behaved  well, 
shared  with  the  two  the  little  she  had,  went 
to  the  baker  for  their  bread  allowance,  and  kept 
them  both  just  alive  till  the  capitulation.  Then 
came  the  public  announcement  of  the  "  English 
gifts,"  whereon  some  of  my  friends,  knowing 
that  I  was  concerned  in  the  distribution,  came 
or  wrote  to  me  recommending  cases.  At  first 
I  tried  to  make  some  examination  for  myself, 
but  very  soon  I  was  beaten  by  the  accumulation 
of  demands,  and,  after  consulting  Colonel  Wort- 
ley,  told  my  friends  they  must  assume  the  re- 
sponsibility of  their  suggestions,  and  placed 
tickets  at  their  disposal.  In  this  way  I  was 
asked  for  help  for  the  father  and  daughter  by 
a  connection,  as  I  discovered  afterwards,  of  the 
deceased  old  lady,  to  whom  the  other  girl  had 
spoken  about  them.  One  morning  I  was  in  the 
private-distribution  depot  looking  on,  when  that 
very  girl  came  in.  I  spoke  to  her,  asked 
whether  she  was  there  for  herself  or  for  others, 
and  got  from  her  in  minute  details  (rather  too 


108  SOME    MEMORIES    OF    PARIS. 

minute  indeed,  for  she  was  an  hour  over  them) 
the  story  I  have  just  told.  I  did  not  visit  the 
poor  people,  for  by  that  time  I  had  too  much 
to  do,  and  also  was  growing  a  little  hardened ; 
but  I  inquired  often  about  them  during  two  or 
three  years  from  the  friend  who  had  first  spoken 
of  them  to  me,  and  was  pleased  to  hear  that 
the  father  was  alive,  and  that  the  daughter  (who 
was  maintaining  him)  had  returned  to  her  place, 
where  she  continued  to  be  as  elegant  as  before, 
and  displayed  the  apparel  she  was  commissioned 
to  put  on  with  a  seductively  languid  new  grace, 
which  she  was  supposed  to  owe  to  her  sufferings 
during  the  siege,  and  which  the  others  envied. 
I  thought  sometimes  of  going  to  look  at  her; 
but  my  curiosity  seemed  to  me  somewhat  indis- 
creet, and,  besides,  I  fancied  that  to  behold 
her  all  over  satin  and  lace  might  damage  the 
keenness  of  my  sympathy  with  her  sad  story. 
The  case  was  illustrative.  The  blindness  of 
the  father  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  war; 
but  the  deaths  of  the  two  sons  were  due  to 
it,  one  directly,  the  other  indirectly,  and  the 
miseries  of  the  daughter  were  caused  by  it 
alone.  A  better  example  could  scarcely  be 
found  of  mischief  brought  about  by  the  siege  ; 
yet  here  again  the  damage  did  not  assume 


ENGLISH    FOOD    GIFTS   AFTER    THE    SIEGE.       IOQ 

entirely  the  shape  of  starvation — want  of  food 
certainly  played  a  part  in  it,  but  the  deaths 
of  the  brothers  were  not  caused  by  famine,  and 
both  the  father  and  daughter  lived  on  and  got 
well. 

And  there  ends  my  personal  knowledge  of 
remarkable  sorrows  resulting  from  the  invest- 
ment. I  was  in  a  position  to  look  somewhat 
behind  the  scenes ;  I  was  exceptionally  placed, 
as  a  member  of  the  English  Committee,  for 
hearing  of  particularly  bad  examples ;  I  listened 
to  the  talk  and  the  experiences  of  a  large  num- 
ber of  persons,  with  many  priests  amongst  them, 
— and  yet  I  cannot  call  to  mind  any  other  very 
distressing  examples.  I  heard,  of  course,  in 
general  terms,  of  many  more;  but  I  had  no 
means  of  testing  them,  and  therefore,  though 
I  in  no  way  pretend  that  there  were  not  hun- 
dreds quite  as  sad  as  the  few  I  have  narrated, 
I  hold  nevertheless  to  the  conviction  that  the 
siege  did  not  produce  anything  approaching  to 
the  starvation  that  was  gratuitously  attributed 
to  it.  If  evidence  could  not  be  found  when  it 
was  carefully  sought  for  (and  I  did  seek  it 
carefully),  it  does  not  seem  unjust  to  infer  that 
it  scarcely  existed  in  any  abundance.  The  effect 
of  the  siege  was,  as  I  have  said  and  shown,  to 


110  SOME    MEMORIES    OF    PARIS. 

kindle  much  disease  and  much  moral  and  phys- 
ical distress :  its  consequences,  for  years  after- 
wards, showed  themselves  in  many  cases  of 
enfeebled  health  and  of  damaged  constitutions ; 
but  those  consequences  were  generated,  I  be- 
lieve, by  cold,  by  anxiety,  by  gloomy  surround- 
ings, and  by  unwholesome  nourishment,  far 
more  than  by  positive  absence  of  any  food 
whatever.  If  the  siege  had  occurred  in  the 
summer,  instead  of  the  winter,  the  larger  part 
of  those  consequences  would  not,  in  all  proba- 
bility, have  come  about  at  all. 

I  am  therefore  disposed  to  doubt  whether  the 
"  English  gifts  "  did  all  the  good  that  was  in- 
tended and  expected  by  their  promoters.  That 
they  did  some  good  is  certain  ;  that  they  enabled 
a  good  many  people  to  make  the  first  fair  meal 
they  had  eaten  for  a  long  while,  is  equally  cer- 
tain ;  that,  here  and  there,  in  a  few  cases,  they 
supplied  food  just  at  the  last  moment,  when 
it  seemed  to  be  unobtainable  elsewhere,  is,  I 
think,  proved  by  the  stories  I  have  told;  but 
as  there  was  no  general  absolute  starvation, 
their  influence  went  no  further.  It  was  a 
satisfaction  to  every  one  concerned  to  feel  that 
those  results  were  attained;  but  the  hope  was 
to  do  much  more,  and  more  was  not  done, 


ENGLISH    FOOD    GIFTS    AFTER   THE    SIEGE.       Ill 

for  the  decisive    reason   that   it  was   not  there 
to  do. 

Furthermore,  though  it  pleased  the  English 
to  send  the  food,  I  doubt  strongly  that  it  pleased 
the  French  to  receive  it.  The  circumstances 
were  delicate  :  the  French  were  at  that  moment, 
most  naturally,  in  a  condition  of  nerve-tension, 
of  rage,  of  humiliation,  which  led  them  to  look 
at  everything  with  a  fiercely  embittered  eye ; 
and  a  good  many  of  them  imagined,  in  their 
rankling  susceptibility,  that  the  object  of  Eng- 
land was  to  humiliate  them  rather  than  to  assist 
them.  And,  honestly,  considering  what  their 
state  of  mind  was  at  the  time;  considering 
that  they  were  writhing  under  defeat  and  pain ; 
considering  how  unprepared  they  had  been, 
both  by  their  national  character  and  by  the 
previous  conditions  of  their  national  life,  to 
stand  up  under  the  fearful  blow  that  fell  upon 
them, — I  admit  that  they  had  much  excuse  for 
their  impression.  The  question  was  not  whether 
the  impression  itself  was  true  or  false,  but  whether 
those  who  formed  it  were  led  to  it  by  what  ap- 
peared to  them,  in  their  excitement,  to  be  a 
reasonable  feeling.  Their  irritation  was  such 
that,  in  many  cases,  it  was  almost  unsafe  for 
a  foreigner  to  speak  to  them.  That  irritation 


112  SOME    MEMORIES   OF   PARIS. 

was,  if  not  justifiable,  at  all  events  compre- 
hensible, and  it  influenced  every  thought  they 
had.  Even  long  afterwards  I  heard  the  "  Eng- 
lish gifts "  referred  to  with  resentment.  The 
Government  of  the  period  professed,  officially, 
to  be  very  grateful,  and  to  be  much  touched 
by  the  sympathy  exhibited  by  England ;  and 
of  course  the  people  who  got  the  food  were 
glad  to  profit  by  it :  but  I  am  convinced  that 
the  nation,  as  a  whole,  disliked  our  interference, 
and  would  have  preferred  to  see  us  "stop  in 
our  island." 


CHAPTER    VI. 

THE    ENTRY   OF   THE   GERMANS. 

IN  the  early  morning  of  1st  March  1871, 
Laurence  Oliphant  (who  was  then  correspon- 
dent of  the  'Times')  and  I  left  the  Hotel 
Chatham  to  walk  up  the  Champs  Elysees  to 
a  balcony  in  the  Avenue  de  la  Grande  Arme'e, 
from  which  we  were  to  view  the  entry  of  the 
Germans  into  Paris.  The  sky  was  grey;  the 
air  was  full  of  mist ;  not  a  soul  was  to  be  seen ; 
the  shutters  of  every  house  were  closed ;  a  day 
of  national  humiliation  could  not  have  com- 
menced more  dismally.  I  remember  that  we 
felt  an  oppressive  sensation  of  loneliness  and 
gloom,  which  we  communicated  to  each  other 
at  the  same  instant,  and  then  laughed  at  the 
simultaneity  of  our  thoughts. 

At  the  Arch  of  Triumph  were  two  men  in 
blouses,  the  first  we  met.     They  were  staring 
H 


114  SOME    MEMORIES    OF   PARIS. 

through  the  mist  at  the  Porte  Maillot,  and  we 
proceeded  to  stare  too,  for  it  was  from  that 
gate  that  the  entry  was  to  be  made.  So  far  as 
we  could  see,  the  whole  place  was  absolutely 
empty ;  but  our  eyes  were  not  quite  reliable, 
for  the  fog  on  the  low  ground  was  so  thick  that 
it  was  impossible  to  make  out  anything.  That 
fog  might  be  full  of  troops,  for  all  we  knew. 

It  was  then  about  half-past  seven,  and  as  we 
had  been  told  the  night  before  that  the  advanced- 
guard  would  come  in  at  eight,  we  thought,  after 
standing  for  some  minutes  on  the  heaps  of  gravel 
which  had  been  thrown  up  during  the  siege  to 
form  a  trench  and  barricade  under  and  around 
the  Arch,  that  we  had  better  move  on  to  our 
balcony.  Meanwhile,  however,  some  twenty  or 
thirty  other  blouses,  evil -faced  and  wretched, 
had  come  up;  they  eyed  us  with  undisguised 
suspicion,  and  consulted  each  other,  apparently, 
as  to  what  we  could  be,  and  what  they  should  do 
to  us.  We  left  them  hesitating,  and  walked  on. 

A  group  of  Englishmen  gathered  on  that  bal- 
cony— a  dozen  curious  sight-seers.  The  owner 
of  the  house  was  Mr  Corbett,  who  was  afterwards 
minister  at  Stockholm ;  amongst  the  others,  so 
far  as  I  remember,  were  Mr  Elliot,  the  Duke  of 
Manchester,  Captain  Trotter,  and  Lord  Ronald 


THE  ENTRY  OF  THE  GERMANS.      115 

Gower.  Excepting  the  men  in  blouses  about 
the  Arch,  who  by  this  time  had  multiplied  to 
at  least  a  hundred,  there  was  nobody  within 
sight.  The  void  was  painful.  Not  a  window 
was  open  (excepting  in  the  rooms  to  which  we 
had  come) ;  our  balcony  alone  was  peopled  ;  one 
of  the  greatest  historic  spectacles  of  our  time 
was  about  to  be  enacted  in  front  of  us ;  yet,  save 
ourselves  and  the  blouses,  there  was  no  public  to 
contemplate  it.  The  French  who  lived  up  there 
refused  to  look,  or,  if  they  did  look,  it  was  from 
behind  their  shutters.  Such  part  of  the  educated 
population  as  were  in  Paris  that  day  (most  of 
them  were  absent)  hid  themselves  in  grief.  We 
English  represented  the  rest  of  the  world,  as  we 
generally  do  on  such  occasions. 

We  gazed  hard  at  the  Porte  Maillot,  from 
which  we  were  distant  about  a  quarter  of  a 
mile ;  but  though  the  mist  had  begun  to  lift  a 
little,  it  was  still  too  thick  to  allow  anything 
to  be  distinguished  clearly  on  the  Neuilly  road. 
We  looked  and  looked  again  in  vain.  It  was 
not  till  we  had  waited,  somewhat  impatiently, 
for  half  an  hour,  that,  at  a  quarter  past  eight, 
some  one  exclaimed,  "  I  do  believe  I  see  moving 
specks  out  there  beyond  the  gate."  Up  went  all 
our  glasses,  and  there  they  were  1  We  recognised 


Il6  SOME   MEMORIES   OF  PARIS. 

more  and  more  distinctly  six  horsemen  coming, 
and  evidently  coming  fast,  for  they  grew  bigger 
and  sharper  as  each  second  passed.  One  seemed 
to  be  in  front,  the  other  five  behind. 

As  we  watched  eagerly  they  reached  the  open 
gate,  dashed  through  it,  and,  the  instant  they 
were  inside,  the  five  behind  spread  out  right  and 
left  across  the  broad  avenue,  as  if  to  occupy  it. 
The  one  in  front,  who,  so  far  as  we  could  see, 
had  been  riding  until  then  at  a  canter,  broke 
into  a  hand-gallop,  and  then  into  a  full  gallop, 
and  came  tearing  up  the  hill.  As  he  neared  us 
we  saw  he  was  a  hussar  officer — a  boy — he  did 
not  look  eighteen !  He  charged  past  us,  his 
sword  uplifted,  his  head  thrown  back,  his  eyes 
fixed  straight  before  him,  and  one  of  us  cried 
out,  "By  Jove,  if  that  fellow's  mother  could 
see  him  she'd  have  something  to  be  proud  of 
for  the  rest  of  her  time  !  "  The  youngster  raced 
on  far  ahead  of  his  men,  but  at  the  Arch  of 
Triumph  the  blouses  faced  him.  So,  as  he 
would  not  ride  them  down  in  order  to  go 
through  (and  if  he  had  tried  it  he  would  only 
have  broken  his  own  neck  and  his  horse's  too 
in,  the  trench),  he  waved  his  sword  at  them,  and 
at  slackened  speed  passed  round.  We  caught 
sight  of  him  on  the  other  side  through  the 


THE  ENTRY  OF  THE  GERMANS.      117 

archway,  his  sword  high  up,  as  if  he  were 
saluting  the  vanquished  city  at  his  feet.  But 
he  did  not  stop  for  sentiment.  He  cantered 
on,  came  back,  and  as  his  five  men  had  got 
up  by  that  time  (he  had  outpaced  them  by  a 
couple  of  minutes),  he  gave  them  orders,  and  off 
they  went,  one  to  each  diverging  avenue,  and 
rode  down  it  a  short  distance  to  see  that  all 
was  right. 

The  boy  trotted  slowly  round  and  round  the 
Arch,  the  blouses  glaring  at  him. 

The  entry  was  over — that  is  to  say,  the  Ger- 
mans were  inside  Paris.  That  boy  had  done 
it  all  alone.  The  moral  effect  was  produced. 
Nothing  more  of  that  sort  could  be  seen  from 
the  balcony.  We  took  it  for  granted  that  the 
rest,  when  it  came,  would  only  be  a  march  past, 
and  that  thenceforth  the  interest  of  the  drama 
would  be  in  the  street.  So  to  the  street  Oli- 
phant  and  I  returned,  two  others  accompany- 
ing us.  The  remainder  of  the  party,  if  I  re- 
member right,  stopped  where  they  were  for 
some  time  longer. 

Just  as  we  got  to  the  Arch  the  boy  came 
round  once  more.  I  went  to  him  and  asked  his 
name. 

"  What  for  ?  "  he  inquired. 


Il8  SOME    MEMORIES   OF   PARIS. 

"  To  publish  it  in  London  to  -  morrow 
morning." 

"Oh!  that's  it,  is  it?  "  he  remarked,  with  a 
tinge  of  the  contempt  for  newspapers  which  all 
German  officers  display.  "Well,  I'm  von  Bern- 
hardi,  I4th  Hussars.  Only,  if  you're  going  to 
print  it,  please  give  my  captain's  name  also; 
he's  von  Colomb." 

Five  minutes  later  a  squadron  of  the  regiment 
came  up,  and  Lieutenant  von  Bernhardi's  com- 
mand-in-chief  expired.  But  the  youngster  had 
made  a  history  for  his  name ;  he  was  the  first 
German  into  Paris  in  1871. 

(I  heard,  the  last  time  I  was  in  Germany, 
that  the  brave  boy  Bernhardi  is  dead,  and  that 
Colomb  was  then  colonel  of  the  King's  Hussars, 
at  Bonn.) 

We  stood  amongst  the  blouses,  and  wondered 
whether  they  would  wring  our  necks.  We  were 
clean,  presumably  we  had  money  in  our  pockets, 
and  I  had  spoken  to  a  German — three  unpar- 
donable offences.  No  attack,  however,  was 
made  on  any  of  us  for  the  moment.  Now  that 
I  look  back  on  the  particular  circumstances,  I 
fail  to  comprehend  why  they  were  good  enough 
to  abstain. 

More  and  more  troops  marched  up,  infantry 


THE   ENTRY   OF   THE   GERMANS. 

and  cavalry,  but  always  in  small  numbers ;  the 
mass  of  the  German  army  was  at  Longchamp, 
for  the  great  review  to  be  held  that  morning  by 
the  Emperor,  and  the  30,000  men  who,  under  the 
convention  of  occupation,  were  to  enter  Paris 
(in  reality,  about  40,000  came),  were  not  to  ap- 
pear till  the  review  was  over. 

At  nine  o'clock  the  commander  of  the  occu- 
pation (General  von  Kameke)  rode  in  with  an 
escort.  At  his  side  was  Count  Waldersee,  who 
during  the  war  had  been  chief  of  the  staff  to 
the  Duke  of  Mecklenburg,  to  whose  army  Oli- 
phant  had  been  attached.  Seeing  Waldersee, 
Oliphant  jumped  out  to  greet  him,  shook  hands 
with  him  warmly,  chatted  gaily,  and,  after  show- 
ing various  signs  of  intimacy,  came  back  towards 
us  laughing,  as  the  other  rode  on.  This  was,  not 
unnaturally,  too  much  for  those  of  the  blouses 
who  saw  it,  and,  before  Oliphant  could  reach 
us,  they  rushed  at  him.  Some  hit  him,  some 
tried  to  trip  him  up  ;  a  good  dozen  of  them  were 
on  him.  A  couple  of  us  made  a  plunge  after 
him,  roared  to  the  blouses  that  he  was  an 
Englishman,  and  that  they  had  no  right  to 
touch  him ;  and  somehow  (I  have  never  under- 
stood how)  we  pulled  him  out  undamaged,  but  a 
good  deal  out  of  breath  and  with  his  jacket  torn. 


120  SOME   MEMORIES   OF   PARIS. 

The  blouses  howled  at  us,  and  bestowed  un- 
gentle epithets  on  us,  and  followed  us,  and  men- 
aced ;  but  we  got  away  into  another  part  of  the 
constantly  thickening  crowd,  and  promised  each 
other  that  we  would  speak  no  more  that  day  to 
Germans.  I  need  scarcely  say  that  the  mob 
was  unchecked  master,  that  the  Germans  would 
not  have  interfered  in  any  fight  that  did  not 
directly  concern  them,  and  that  neither  a  French 
policeman  nor  a  French  soldier  was  present  to 
keep  order  within  the  limits  of  the  district  fixed 
for  the  occupation.  Those  limits  were  —  the 
Place  de  la  Concorde  on  the  east,  the  Faubourg 
St  Honore  and  the  Avenue  des  Ternes  on  the 
north,  the  Seine  on  the  south. 

By  ten  the  sun  had  worked  through  the  fog, 
and  also,  by  ten,  a  considerable  number  of  the 
inhabitants  of  Paris  had  become  unable  to  resist 
the  temptation  of  seeing  a  new  sight,  and  had 
come  out  to  the  show.  At  that  hour  there  must 
have  been  30,000  or  40,000  people  in  the  upper 
part  of  the  Champs  Elysees ;  the  gloom  of  the 
early  morning  was  as  if  it  had  not  been  ;  all  was 
movement  and  brightness.  The  crowd,  which 
in  the  afternoon  we  estimated  at  100,000  to 
150,000,  was  composed,  for  the  greater  part,  of 
blouses ;  but  mixed  with  them  were  a  quantity 


THE  ENTRY  OF  THE  GERMANS.      121 

of  decent  people,  from  all  parts  of  the  town, 
women  and  children  as  well  as  men,  belonging, 
apparently,  to  the  classes  of  small  shopkeepers, 
employees,  and  workmen.  From  morning  to 
night  I  did  not  perceive  one  single  gentleman 
(excepting  a  foreigner  here  and  there) ;  nor  was 
a  shutter  opened  in  the  Champs  Elysees.  The 
upper  strata  kept  out  of  sight ;  it  was  the  other 
couches,  especially  the  very  lowest,  that  had 
come  out. 

Directly  troops  enough  were  in  to  supply 
pickets,  sentries  were  posted  at  the  street- 
corners  ;  patrols  were  set  going ;  a  guard  was 
mounted  at  the  house  of  Queen  Christina,  in  the 
Champs  Elysees,  which  had  been  selected  for 
the  German  headquarters.  We  looked  on  at 
all  this,  at  first  with  close  attention,  but  by 
degrees  the  state  of  things  grew  rather  dull. 
In  times  of  great  excitement,  events  seem  to  be- 
come stupid  so  soon  as  they  cease,  temporarily, 
to  be  dangerous.  Besides,  for  the  moment,  the 
interest  of  the  day  had  changed  its  place  and 
nature  ;  it  was  no  longer  in  the  German  army, 
but  in  the  French  crowd  ;  not  in  the  entry,  but 
in  the  reception.  As  we  had  rightly  judged,  the 
drama  was  in  the  street.  So  we  stood  about 
and  watched  the  people,  and  talked  to  some  of 


122  SOME   MEMORIES   OF   PARIS. 

them,  and  thought  that,  on  the  whole,  they  be- 
haved very  well.  Of  course  they  would  have 
done  better  still  if  they  had  stopped  at  home, 
and  had  left  the  Germans  severely  alone ;  but, 
as  they  had  thought  fit  to  come,  they  also 
thought  fit  to  keep  their  tempers,  which  was 
creditable  to  them.  So  long  as  they  were  not 
provoked  by  some  particular  cause,  they  re- 
mained quiet  and  showed  no  rage.  They 
wanted  to  behold  a  remarkable  sight  that  was 
offered  for  their  inspection,  and  though  beyond 
doubt  it  vexed  them,  their  vexation  was  not 
strong  enough  to  check  their  curiosity.  At 
least  that  was  our  impression  from  what  we  saw. 
At  half-past  one  I  had  wandered  back  alone 
to  the  Avenue  de  la  Grande  Armee,  where  the 
crowd  had  become  very  dense,  filling  up,  indeed, 
the  entire  roadway.  On  the  other  side  I  saw  a 
horseman  trying  to  work  his  way  through.  It 
was  Mr  W.  H.  Russell.  I  could  not  get  to  him 
to  speak,  but  I  knew  by  his  presence  there 
that  the  review  (to  which  he  had  ridden  from 
Versailles)  was  over,  and  that,  before  very  long, 
the  real  march  in  would  commence.  It  did  not 
occur  to  me  at  the  moment  that  Mr  Russell  was 
doing  a  risky  thing  in  cutting  across  the  mob  on 
a  prosperous  horse,  which  manifestly  had  not 


THE  ENTRY  OF  THE  GERMANS.      123 

gone  through  the  siege-time  in  Paris.  It  was 
not  till  some  hours  later  that  I  learnt  how 
nearly  the  mob  had  killed  him. 

At  last,  at  two  o'clock,  thick  dust  arose  out- 
side the  Porte  Maillot,  and  I  made  out  with 
my  glass  that  the  people  were  being  pressed 
back  at  the  gate,  and  that  troops  were  advanc- 
ing slowly — for  the  mob  would  not  make  way, 
and  the  Germans  were  patient  and  gentle  with 
them.  The  head  of  the  column  got  up  creep- 
ingly  as  far  as  the  Arch  of  Triumph ;  but  then 
came  a  dead  block.  The  gathering  of  people 
filled  up  the  Place  de  1'Etoile  and  the  upper 
part  of  the  Avenue  des  Champs  Elysees,  and 
packed  it  all  so  solidly  that  often,  for  minutes 
at  a  time,  the  cavalry  could  not  move  ahead. 
A  good  half-hour  passed  before  space  was 
cleared  for  the  staff;  and  even  then,  for  nearly 
another  half -hour  after  they  had  reached  the 
Neuilly  side  of  the  Arch,  they  had  to  sit  still 
upon  their  horses,  unable  to  progress  one  yard. 

And  what  a  staff  it  was !  With  the  excep- 
tion of  the  Crown  Prince  Frederick,  every  prince 
in  the  army — and  that  meant  almost  every  prince 
in  Germany — and  heaps  of  officers  of  high  rank, 
had  come  up  from  the  review  to  take  part  in 
the  ride  in.  At  their  head,  alone,  sat  the  late 


124  SOME    MEMORIES   OF   PARIS. 

Duke  Ernest  of  Saxe-Coburg,  taking  precedence 
as  the  senior  reigning  sovereign  present.  Be- 
hind him  were  rows  on  rows  of  members  of 
the  royal  and  historic  families  of  Germany, 
some  twenty  in  a  row,  and,  including  aides- 
de-camp  and  orderlies,  some  thirty  rows !  In 
every  sort  and  colour  of  uniform,  they  stretched 
across  the  full  width  of  the  great  Avenue  from 
curbstone  to  curbstone,  and  would  have  filled 
up  the  pathways  too  if  they  had  not  been  already 
choked  with  French  spectators.  I  had  the  good 
fortune  to  penetrate  to  the  corner  of  the  pave- 
ment where  the  Place  de  1'Etoile  opens  out, 
and  there  I  stood  and  gazed. 

The  sun  shone  splendidly;  the  mob  stared 
silently;  the  princes  waited  tranquilly. 

I  recognised  many  faces  that  I  had  got  to 
know  at  Versailles  during  the  siege.  I  saw 
Meiningens,  and  Leopold  Hohenzollern,  and 
Altenburgs,  and  Lippes,  and  Reuss,  and  Pless, 
and  Schrenburgs,  Waldecks,  Wieds,  Hohen- 
lohes,  and  Mecklenburgs,  and  the  bearers  of 
other  names  that  are  written  large  in  the 
chronicles  of  the  Fatherland. 

And  as  I  went  on  looking,  my  eyes  fell  on  to 
the  front  rank,  and  the  fourth  man  in  that  rank 
was — Bismarck. 


THE  ENTRY  OF  THE  GERMANS.      125 

His  right  hand  was  twisted  into  his  horse's 
mane ;  his  helmeted  head  hung  down  upon  his 
chest,  so  low  that  I  could  perceive  nothing  of 
his  face  except  the  tip  of  his  nose  and  the  ends 
of  his  moustache.  There  he  sat,  motionless, 
evidently  in  deep  thought.  After  I  had  watched 
him  for  a  couple  of  minutes  (I  need  scarcely 
say  that,  having  discovered  him,  I  ceased  to 
look  at  anybody  else),  he  raised  his  head  slowly 
and  fixed  his  eyes  on  the  top  of  the  Arch,  which 
was  just  in  front  of  him,  some  eighty  yards  off. 
In  that  position  he  remained,  once  more  motion- 
less, for  a  while.  I  did  my  best — he  was  only 
the  thickness  of  three  horses  from  me — to  make 
out  the  expression  of  his  face,  which  was  then 
fully  exposed  to  me ;  but  there  was  no  marked 
expression  on  it.  At  that  moment  of  intense 
victory,  when  all  was  won,  inside  surrendered 
Paris,  with  the  whole  world  thinking  of  him, 
he  seemed  indifferent,  fatigued,  almost  sad. 

Suddenly  I  saw  that  his  horse's  head  was 
moving  from  the  line ;  he  was  coming  out. 
He  turned  to  the  right,  in  my  direction;  he 
raised  his  hand  to  the  salute  as  he  passed  before 
his  neighbours  to  the  end  of  the  rank,  came 
straight  towards  me,  and  guided  his  horse  in 
between  the  column  of  officers  and  the  tightly 


126  SOME    MEMORIES   OF    PARIS. 

jammed  crowd  on  the  pavement.  It  seemed 
impossible  he  could  find  room  to  pass,  so  little 
space  was  there ;  but  pass  he  did.  The  top  of 
his  jackboot  brushed  hard  against  my  waistcoat ; 
but  with  all  my  desire  to  get  out  of  his  way  I 
could  not  struggle  backwards,  because  of  the 
denseness  of  the  throng  behind  me.  No  French- 
man recognised  him.  I  have  wondered  since 
what  would  have  happened  if  I  had  told  the 
people  who  he  was.  Would  they  have  gaped 
at  him  in  hating  silence  ?  Would  they  have 
cursed  him  aloud  ?  Would  they  have  flung 
stones  at  him  ?  Or  would  they,  as  a  safer 
solution,  have  battered  me  for  the  crime  of 
knowing  him  by  sight  ?  He  rode  on  slowly 
down  the  hill,  making  his  way  with  difficulty. 
I  heard  next  day  that,  once  outside  the  gate, 
he  trotted  straight  back  to  Versailles. 

So,  on  that  marvellous  occasion — an  occasion 
which  he,  of  all  men,  had  most  contributed  to 
create — he  did  not  enter  Paris  after  all  (beyond 
the  Arch  of  Triumph,  I  mean).  A  friend  to 
whom  I  told  this  story  some  years  later,  took 
an  opportunity  to  ask  him  what  was  his  reason 
for  riding  away  and  for  taking  no  further  part 
in  the  day's  work.  He  answered,  "  Why,  I  saw 
that  all  was  going  on  well,  and  that  there  would 


THE  ENTRY  OF  THE  GERMANS.      127 

be  no  row :  I  had  a  lot  to  do  at  Versailles,  so  I 
went  and  did  it."  If  that  was  in  reality  his 
sole  motive,  he  proved  that  he  possessed,  at 
that  period  of  his  life,  a  power  of  self-control 
which  he  has  lost  since ;  for  it  must  have  cost 
him  a  good  deal  to  forego  the  splendid  satis- 
faction of  consummating  his  work  by  head- 
ing the  triumphal  progress  down  the  Champs 
Elysees. 

At  the  moment  when  this  happened  I  was 
separated  from  Oliphant ;  but  as  we  had  fixed 
upon  a  trysting-place  close  by,  I  was  able  to 
find  him  soon,  and  to  tell  him  of  the  sight  I 
had  just  witnessed.  He  was  sorry  he  had  not 
seen  it  too,  for  he  was  curious  about  the  mental 
ways  of  Count  Bismarck  (as  he  was  then). 

At  last  the  cavalry  in  front  succeeded  in  open- 
ing out  a  way.  But  what  a  way !  It  was  a 
twisting  narrow  path,  all  zigzags,  curves,  and 
bends;  not  twenty  yards  of  it  were  straight. 
The  French  stood  doggedly;  they  would  not 
move.  With  infinite  patience,  avoiding  all  bru- 
tality, excepting  here  and  there  when  some 
soldier  lost  his  temper  for  a  moment  and  used 
the  flat  of  his  sword,  the  Germans  ended  by 
squeezing  the  mob  just  enough  to  form  a  crooked 
lane  a  few  yards  wide,  between  two  walls  of 


128  SOME    MEMORIES   OF   PARIS. 

people,  and  down  that  lane  the  first  part  of 
the  solemn  entry  (the  only  part  I  saw)  was  per- 
formed. It  was  not  an  effective  spectacle,  nor 
did  the  German  army,  otherwise  than  by  their 
mere  presence  there,  represent  a  conquering  host; 
they  were  vastly  too  polite  for  victors,  and 
vastly  too  irregular  for  a  phalanx.  Regarded 
either  as  a  military  pageant  or  as  a  blaze  of 
triumph,  the  entry  was  a  failure.  Decidedly 
young  Bernhardi  had  the  best  of  it.  There  was 
sore  talking  afterwards,  amongst  the  troops  that 
had  not  come  in,  about  the  sacrifice  of  the  glory 
of  Germany  to  fanciful  ideas  of  respect  for  the 
vanquished. 

The  march  down  the  Champs  Elysees  com- 
menced about  three  o'clock,  but  we  did  not  care 
to  follow  it ;  it  was  difficult  to  see  anything  at 
all,  so  wedged  in  was  the  column ;  and,  further- 
more, we  had  eaten  nothing  for  nine  hours  and 
were  desperately  hungry.  So,  as  some  one  told 
us  that  a  cafe  was  open  at  the  corner  of  the 
Avenue  de  1'Alma,  we  went  off  to  it,  in  hopes. 
Most  happily  the  report  was  true ;  only  the 
place  was  so  crammed  with  devouring  Germans 
that  we  could  obtain  scarcely  anything.  To 
punish  the  owner  for  feeding  the  foe,  the  blouses 
had  the  kindness  to  pull  that  cafe  to  pieces  two 


THE  ENTRY  OF  THE  GERMANS.      I2Q 

days  afterwards,  at  the  moment  of  the  evacua- 
tion. 

And  then  we  strolled  again,  and  stood  about, 
and  listened  to  the  talk  of  the  mob,  and  noticed 
more  and  more  that,  though  full  of  a  dull  hate 
against  the  enemy,  the  hate  was  in  no  way 
violent.  Curiosity,  as  I  have  already  said,  was 
more  vigorous  than  rage.  Sometimes  a  blouse 
would  curse  an  officer,  or  sneer  at  one,  or  even 
lift  a  threatening  hand  (though  that  was  rare) ; 
but,  on  the  whole,  they  were  very  quiet,  and 
they  all  ran  for  their  lives  if,  here  and  there,  a 
too  aggressively  provoked  German  made  pretence 
to  ride  at  them  or  to  raise  his  sword.  I  cannot 
sufficiently  repeat  that,  taking  into  account  the 
realities  of  the  position,  the  crowd  behaved  well. 
There  was  some  laughing,  and  a  good  deal  of 
amused  comment  on  the  appearance  of  the 
Germans;  some  scoffed  at  them,  especially  at 
the  few  who  wore  the  Frederick  the  Great  mitre 
shakos  of  the  Foot  Guards ;  but  some  again 
frankly  praised  the  height  and  size,  and  particu- 
larly the  aristocratic  bearing,  of  many  of  the 
officers.  A  woman  at  my  side  gave  vent 
simultaneously  to  her  artistic  appreciation  of 
them,  and  to  her  indignation  at  being 
forced  involuntarily  to  admire  them,  by  ex- 

I 


I3O  SOME   MEMORIES   OF    PARIS. 

claiming,    "  C'est    degoutant    comme    ils    sont 
distingues !  " 

It  was  only  on  the  fringes  of  the  crowd,  so  far 
as  I  saw  and  heard,  that  attacks  were  made 
and  cruelties  committed,  and  even  there,  only 
against  persons  who  spoke  to  Germans,  or  were 
suspected  of  being  "spies,"  whatever  that  might 
mean.  (At  that  time,  the  exclamation  "  Nous 
sommes  trahis  "  was  considered  to  explain  and 
excuse  everything.)  A  friend  of  mine  saw  a 
young  woman,  smartly  dressed,  but  pale  and 
seemingly  half  starved,  trying  to  talk  to  some 
officers  at  the  corner  of  the  Rue  de  Presbourg 
in  the  Avenue  Josephine  (now  the  Avenue  Mar- 
ceau).  And  then,  when  she  turned  away  from 
them,  he  also  saw,  to  his  sickening  disgust,  a 
band  of  blackguards  rush  at  her.  Within  half  a 
minute  all  her  clothes  were  torn  from  the  un- 
happy creature,  and  she  was  cruelly  beaten; 
and  there  she  stood,  shrieking,  in  the  sunlight, 
with  nothing  left  untattered  on  her  but  her  stays 
and  boots,  her  bare  flesh  bleeding  everywhere 
from  cuts.  And  this  was  what  those  ruffians 
called  "  patriotism  "  !  An  hour  later  I  was  told 
that  another  woman,  for  a  similar  offence,  had 
been  thrown  into  the  Seine ;  but  my  informant 
had  not  seen  it  with  his  own  eyes,  as  in  the  other 


THE    ENTRY    OF   THE    GERMANS.  13! 

case.     Of  course  these  atrocities  were  the  work 
of  the  filthiest  scum  of  the  population. 

By  five  o'clock,  when  the  troops  off  duty  had 
been  dismissed,  the  door  of  every  house  in  the 
Champs  Elys€es,  and  in  all  the  streets  within  the 
area  of  occupation,  bore  chalk-marks  indicating 
the  regiment  and  the  number  of  men  to  be 
billeted  there  ;  and  there  began  to  be  a  clearance 
in  the  roadway.  So,  as  there  was  little  to  see 
that  we  had  not  already  seen,  Oliphant  and  I 
went  to  the  Embassy,  passing  through  the 
Faubourg  on  our  way,  and  observing  that  the 
limits  of  the  occupation  were  guarded  on  each 
side  by  German  and  by  French  sentries,  face 
to  face,  and  sometimes  not  a  yard  apart.  We 
thought  that  was  not  pleasant  for  the  French. 
At  the  Embassy  we  found,  as  well  as  I  remember, 
the  present  Sir  E.  Malet,  the  present  Sir  F. 
Lascelles,  Mr  Harrington,  and  Mr  Wodehouse. 
They  told  us  about  Mr  W.  H.  Russell,  who, 
after  he  had  passed  me  in  the  Avenue  de  la 
Grande  Arm6e,  had  been  set  upon  by  the  crowd, 
who  tried  to  drag  him  from  his  horse  and  lynch 
him.  They  took  him  for  an  isolated  German, 
in  plain  clothes,  and  thought  the  opportunity 
was  excellent.  Nevertheless,  by  pluck  and  luck, 
he  had  managed  to  gallop  on  to  the  shelter  of 


132  SOME    MEMORIES   OF    PARIS. 

the  Embassy,  left  his  horse  there,  proceeded  on 
foot  to  the  Northern  Station,  got  to  London  at 
midnight,  by  special  boat  and  train,  wrote  sev- 
eral columns  for  the  morning's  '  Times,'  went  to 
bed,  and  next  day  returned  to  Paris. 

We  heard,  at  the  same  time,  that  Mr  Archibald 
Forbes  had  been  knocked  over  for  speaking  to 
a  German,  and  rather  hurt,  but  that  he  had  been 
rescued  by  some  of  the  more  decent  French 
members  of  the  crowd,  and  taken,  as  prisoner, 
to  the  nearest  Mairie,  where  he  had  been  re- 
leased. 

After  resting  for  a  while,  we  went  back  into 
the  Champs  Elysees  by  the  Embassy  garden-gate 
in  the  Avenue  Gabriel,  so  as  to  avoid  the  pres- 
sure in  the  Faubourg.  We  fancied  that  the 
French  had  already  grown  somewhat  accustomed 
to  the  presence  of  the  "  Prussians,"  as  they 
called  all  the  Germans  indiscriminately.  It  was 
evident  they  did  not  yet  consider  them  to  be  nos 
amis  Us  ennemis,  as  in  1814,  but  they  had  got  so 
far  as  to  look  at  them  with  relative  calm  and 
much  inquisitiveness,  and  here  and  there  two  or 
three  words  were  exchanged,  with  looks  that 
were  not  unkind.  The  Germans  generally  were 
studiously  civil,  and  even  respectful ;  it  was  clear 
that  stringent  orders  had  been  given  them  to  put 


THE  ENTRY  OF  THE  GERMANS.      133 

on  their  best  behaviour.  As  one  example  of 
their  conduct,  I  was  told  next  day  by  a  priest 
who  lived  in  the  Rue  du  Colysee — that  is  to  say, 
within  the  occupied  district — that  nearly  all  the 
soldiers  saluted  him  in  the  streets. 

A  Uhlan  band  was  playing  in  the  Place  de  la 
Concorde ;  the  sun  had  set ;  evening  was  coming 
down ;  we  were  tired ;  so  we  went  to  dinner  at 
the  Hotel,  with  the  feeling  that  we  had  been 
through  a  memorable  day. 

Next  morning,  2d  March,  several  of  us  were 
out  early,  and  wandered  about  for  hours  gazing 
at  the  sight  of  Paris  "  occupied."  But  though 
the  spectacle  was  strange  and  (even  to  us 
foreigners)  unpleasant,  I  cannot  say  that  we 
perceived  anything  exciting.  Furthermore,  the 
novelty  had  worn  off.  The  Germans  had 
settled  down,  just  as  they  had  done  in  a 
hundred  other  towns  throughout  the  war; 
they  were  in  no  way  provoking  in  their  atti- 
tude or  conduct;  and  though  the  crowd  of 
French  onlookers  was  large  in  the  morning 
and  dense  in  the  afternoon,  no  temper  was 
exhibited  (so  far  as  I  saw)  on  either  side.  The 
Parisian  populace  seemed  to  accept  the  situa- 
tion as  a  scarcely  credible  accident,  disagree- 
able, though  not,  apparently,  vividly  afflictive. 


134  SOME    MEMORIES   OF   PARIS. 

The  presence  of  the  enemy  was  humiliating 
beyond  doubt,  but  it  offered  a  new  sight  to 
look  at,  and  at  all  times  the  people  of  Paris 
like  a  sight,  whatever  be  its  nature.  There 
was,  of  course,  a  strain  in  the  air,  a  struggle 
between  patriotism  and  curiosity,  but  it  seemed 
to  us  Englishmen  that  curiosity  had  decidedly 
the  best  of  it. 

The  day  was  fine ;  the  Germans  sat  about 
in  the  streets,  cleaning  their  arms,  smoking,  or 
staring  at  the  mob.  They  did  not  look  a  bit 
like  conquerors  (as  the  world  imagines  a  con- 
queror), and  we  all  fancied  that  they  were  as 
astonished  to  see  themselves  there  as  the  French 
were  to  behold  them.  At  one  moment  we  saw 
several  couples  of  hussars  waltzing  gravely  to 
their  band  on  the  central  pavement  of  the  Place 
de  la  Concorde  (I  must  say  the  French  did  not 
like  that  at  all — they  had  never  done  it  them- 
selves) ;  at  another  we  watched  artillery  horses 
nibbling  the  bark  off  the  trees  at  the  Rond 
Point ;  then,  again,  we  looked  on  at  some  open- 
air  cooking  by  a  Bavarian  battalion  in  the  Cours 
la  Reine :  but  it  was  all  quite  peaceful,  it  did 
not  seem  like  war,  particularly  in  such  sunlight. 
It  was  only  at  the  limits  of  the  occupied  district, 
where  German  and  French  sentries  faced  each 


THE  ENTRY  OF  THE  GERMANS.      135 

other,  that  there  was  anything  acute  to  look  at ; 
to  that  sight  we  did  not  grow  habituated,  it  was 
painful  from  first  to  last. 

During  the  entire  day  we  heard  of  only  one 
dangerous  incident.  By  the  terms  of  the  sur- 
render the  Germans  had  the  right  to  enter  the 
picture  -  galleries  of  the  Louvre,  and  to  cross 
the  Tuileries  Gardens  for  the  purpose.  But 
the  French  public  was  ignorant  of  the  stipu- 
lation, and  believed  that  the  Place  de  la  Con- 
corde was  the  furthest  limit  allowed  to  the 
conquerors ;  so  when  it  occurred  to  a  certain 
number  of  Bavarians,  who  were  inside  the 
Louvre,  to  open  the  window  of  the  Gallery 
of  Apollo  and  to  look  out  on  to  the  Quai,  the 
French  who  were  passing  there  became  natur- 
ally furious  at  what  they  supposed  to  be  a 
scandalous  abuse  of  force.  A  roar  of  rage  went 
up  from  the  crowd  which  gathered  instantly 
below,  to  which  the  Bavarians  replied  by  grin- 
ning and  making  faces.  In  five  minutes  a 
promising  riot  had  worked  itself  up  on  the 
Quai,  and  stones  began  to  be  thrown  at  the 
window.  Most  luckily  the  headquarters  of 
General  Vinoy,  who  commanded  the  French 
garrison,  were  close  by.  He  was  told  what  was 
happening,  despatched  one  officer  to  quiet  down 


136  SOME    MEMORIES   OF   PARIS. 

the  mob,  and  another  to  General  Kameke  to 
beg  him  earnestly  to  withdraw  all  German 
soldiers  from  the  Louvre  and  the  Tuileries 
Gardens,  declaring  that  the  consequences  might 
be  disastrous  if  he  did  not.  Most  wisely — 
I  think  I  may  say  most  kindly — the  German 
general  gave  way,  and  the  German  soldiers 
were  ordered  out.  I  saw  nothing  of  all  this, 
for  at  the  time  I  was  a  mile  off;  but  I  heard 
about  it  an  hour  afterwards  from  a  member  of 
General  Vinoy's  staff,  who  declared  that  the 
German  general  had  behaved  very  consider- 
ately, and  had  in  all  probability  prevented  an 
outbreak  by  abandoning  his  strict  rights. 

So  the  second  day  passed  quite  quietly. 

In  the  evening  I  received  the  following  note 
from  a  friend  in  the  French  Ministry  for  Foreign 
Affairs  (I  have  preserved  it  as  an  historical 
document) : — 

Les  ratifications  ont  et£  e'change'es  tantot  a  Ver- 
sailles. Les  Prussians  eVacuent  Paris  demain  matin. 
Le  Roi  devait  faire  demain  son  entree  solennelle  & 
Paris.  II  a  e"te  desagreablement  surpris  de  nous 
trouver  en  regie  des  aujourd'hui. 

This  meant  that,  in  consequence  of  the 
rapidity  with  which  the  assembly  at  Bordeaux 
had  despatched  their  work  of  confirmation,  the 


THE  ENTRY  OF  THE  GERMANS.      137 

ratifications  of  the  Treaty  of  Peace,  which  were 
not  expected  for  some  days — during  which  time 
the  Germans  were  to  remain  in  Paris  —  had 
reached  Versailles  that  afternoon.  The  occu- 
pation had  therefore  to  come  to  an  end  at 
once. 

So,  next  morning,  Oliphant  and  I  started  off 
once  more  to  the  Arch  of  Triumph ;  only,  as 
the  Champs  Elysees  were  crammed  with  troops, 
we  walked  by  the  Boulevard  Haussmann.  On 
reaching  the  Faubourg  St  Honore,  at  the  bottom 
of  the  Avenue  Friedland,  we  were  stopped  by 
the  French  cordon,  and  at  the  Rue  de  Tilsit 
were  stopped  again  by  the  German  pickets ;  but 
we  had  a  pass  for  each,  and  got  through.  I 
believe  I  am  correct  in  saying  that  we  two  were 
the  sole  spectators  on  the  Place  de  1'Etoile, 
which  was  rigorously  guarded  on  every  side ;  at 
all  events,  we  saw  no  one  else,  and  most  cer- 
tainly we  stood  alone  under  the  Arch. 

The  barricade  had  been  demolished  by  the 
Germans,  the  trench  had  been  filled  up,  the 
ground  had  been  levelled,  and  the  entire  force 
strode  through  the  great  Arcade.  If  the  march 
in  was  a  failure,  the  march  out  was  indeed 
a  splendour. 

As   each   regiment   reached   the   circular  en- 


138  SOME    MEMORIES   OF   PARIS. 

closure,  its  colonel  raised  his  sword  and  shouted 
the  command  to  cheer,  and  then  his  men  tore 
off  their  helmets,  their  busbies,  or  their  czapkas, 
tossed  them  on  their  bayonets,  their  swords,  or 
lances,  and,  heads  flung  back  and  eyes  upturned 
in  maddening  excitement,  and  faces  frantic  with 
enthusiasm,  they  roared  and  yelled,  and  shrieked 
out  hurrah !  and  gaped  with  wild  laughter,  as 
they  marched  on,  at  the  names  of  the  old  de- 
feats of  Prussia  chiselled  on  the  stone  above 
them — defeats  which  they  were  then  effacing. 

Some  40,000  of  them  poured  beneath  the 
Arch  in  utter  intoxication  of  delight,  exulting, 
triumphing.  It  was  difficult  to  believe  that  the 
scene  was  real,  so  flaming  was  the  paroxysm 
of  rejoicing. 

Oliphant  and  I  grew  hot  as  we  gazed  at  that 
tremendous  parade  and  hearkened  to  that  pro- 
digious paean,  and  told  each  other,  almost  in 
a  reverent  whisoer.  that  at  last  we  knew  what 
military  glory  meant.  Never  have  I  passed 
since  in  view  of  the  Arch  of  Triumph  without 
remembering  vividly  that  soul-stirring  spectacle. 

When  the  last  man  was  through  and  General 
Kameke's  staff  had  closed  the  column,  the  dra- 
goon sentries  at  the  heads  of  the  Avenues  backed 
their  horses  in  and  formed  a  rear-guard,  facing 


THE  ENTRY  OF  THE  GERMANS.      139 

the  howling  mob  which  had  followed  the  retir- 
ing army  up  the  Champs  Elysees.  That  mob 
pressed  on,  and  whooped,  and  execrated,  and 
defied.  It  was  so  easy  to  do  all  that  at  the  tail 
of  the  occupation ! 

The  German  tread,  the  German  march  music, 
the  German  shouts,  faded  gradually  out  of  hear- 
ing ;  there  was  a  vast  cloud  of  dust  in  the  sun- 
light above  the  Neuilly  road  ;  and  all  was  over. 

Then  came  a  cruel  contrast.  A  picket  of 
French  soldiers,  with  lowered  arms  and  faces 
full  of  shame,  passed  slowly  through  the  crowd 
to  reoccupy  the  Porte  Maillot.  The  blouses 
remained  masters  of  Paris,  and,  a  fortnight 
later,  made  the  Commune. 


CHAPTER    VII. 

THE   COMMUNE. 

DURING  the  Commune  of  1871  I  was  living 
at  what  was  then  the  top  of  the  Boulevard 
Malesherbes,  exactly  opposite  the  Park  Mon- 
ceau.  The  view  from  my  fourth  floor  was 
open  and  far-reaching  —  at  that  time  it  was 
not  masked  by  tall  houses  that  have  been 
built  since  —  it  ranged  from  the  hills  of  St 
Germain  on  the  right,  past  Mont  Valerien, 
round  to  the  heights  of  Bellevue,  Meudon,  and 
Sceaux,  and  to  miles  of  the  roofs  of  Paris  away 
to  the  left ;  in  the  middle,  above  the  trees  of 
the  park,  the  Arch  of  Triumph  towered  above 
all.  A  better  situation  could  scarcely  have 
been  found  for  watching,  safely  and  completely, 
the  various  destructions  that  were  going  on. 
And  we  had  the  view  all  to  ourselves,  for  every 
one  who  could  run  away  had  done  so ;  people 


THE    COMMUNE.  141 

who,  from  duty,  had  stopped  in  Paris  for  the 
first  siege,  went  out  of  it  for  the  second ;  the 
flat  I  lodged  in  was  the  only  one  inhabited 
throughout  the  Boulevard  ;  the  shutters  of 
every  other  one  were  closed. 

The  bombardment  from  Mont  Valerien  and 
Montretout — which  did  far  more  harm  than  the 
innocent  German  fire  had  effected,  smashed  a 
quantity  of  houses  in  Auteuil,  Passy,  and  the 
Porte  Maillot  district,  knocked  off  nearly  all 
the  sculptures  on  the  west  side  of  the  Arch 
of  Triumph,  and  even  sometimes  damaged  roofs 
and  windows  in  the  upper  part  of  the  Champs 
Elysees — did  not  reach  into  the  Park  Monceau. 
We  were  just  out  of  range,  and,  after  the  first 
day  or  two,  paid  no  more  attention  to  the  shells 
that  went  on  bursting  a  few  hundred  yards  in 
front  of  us  than  if  they  had  been  chestnuts 
cracking  before  a  fire. 

It  was  a  dull  and  dirty  time;  but  we  were 
in  satisfactory  security.  The  Communards 
took  money  from  the  Bank  of  France  and 
from  such  State  institutions  as  had  any,  but 
there  was  scarcely  any  pillaging  of  houses. 
The  Commune  fought  against  the  Government, 
but,  with  the  exception  of  priests,  who  were 
objects  of  its  special  enmity,  and  of  young  men 


142  SOME    MEMORIES    OF    PARIS. 

who  refused  to  serve  in  its  regiments,  very  few 
private  individuals  were  molested. 

Food  of  all  sorts  was  abundant,  for  as  Paris 
was  besieged  by  the  Versaillais  on  one  -  half 
only  of  its  circumference,  and  as  the  outside 
of  the  other  half  was  still  held  by  the  Germans, 
who  had  no  motive  for  stopping  the  entry  of 
provisions,  supplies  came  in  regularly  through 
their  lines. 

The  place  was  so  safe  that  in  my  strolls  about 
I  was  often  accompanied  by  two  little  girls.  I 
used  to  walk  for  mere  exercise  as  a  rule,  for 
there  was  absolutely  nothing  of  any  interest  to 
be  seen  in  the  part  of  Paris  where  I  found 
myself.  Indeed,  during  the  entire  duration  of 
the  Commune,  I  beheld,  until  the  end  came, 
but  two  remarkable  sights. 

One  afternoon  in  the  middle  of  May  I  was 
sitting  reading,  with  the  windows  open.  Sud- 
denly the  whole  house  shook  violently,  and  a 
startling  boom  thundered  through  the  air.  I 
rushed  out  on  to  the  balcony,  and  there,  before 
me,  clear-edged  on  the  blue  sky,  stretched  up- 
wards from  the  house-tops  a  perpendicular  cloud, 
hundreds  of  feet  high,  exactly  the  shape  of  a 
mighty  balloon.  From  it  broke  out  incessant 
fulminating  reports,  which  sounded  like  the 


THE    COMMUNE.  143 

crackling  of  musketry,  but  more  deep-toned ; 
like  the  resonance  of  hammer-blows  on  iron, 
but  more  rapid ;  like  the  roar  of  an  express 
train  tearing  through  a  station,  but  more  last- 
ing. And  the  sight  was  even  grander  than  the 
sound,  for  the  cloud  seemed  made  of  countless 
silvery  ostrich  feathers,  rolling  rapidly,  con- 
tinuously, almost  regularly,  round  each  other, 
in  and  out,  over  and  over,  turning,  twisting, 
twining.  The  sun  shone  glowingly  on  the 
whirling  plumes ;  for  a  minute  they  revolved 
in  endless  vortices,  and  then,  softly,  caprici- 
ously, began  to  change  their  hue ;  here  they 
whitened,  there  they  blackened,  elsewhere  they 
browned  or  yellowed ;  gradually  they  grew  dim, 
both  in  colour  and  in  form ;  the  convolutions 
slackened  ;  the  clanging  peal  died  down  ; 
shapes  dissolved  ;  tints  disappeared  ;  move- 
ment stopped;  sound  ceased.  The  grand  bal- 
loon lost  life;  it  changed  into  almost  ordinary 
smoke,  immense  still,  but  inanimate ;  slowly  its 
edges  melted,  slowly  rents  appeared  in  it,  slowly 
patches  drifted  off  from  it.  Another  minute 
and,  excepting  a  few  floating  shreds,  it  had  passed 
away.  It  had,  indeed,  been  a  spectacle  to  see. 

What  was  it  ?     Of  course  it  was  an  explosion 
— but  of  what  ? 


144  SOME    MEMORIES    OF    PARIS. 

I  ran  down-stairs,  found  the  concierge  trem- 
bling, saw  no  one  in  the  street,  and  started  off 
towards  the  Seine,  in  the  direction  where  the 
vanished  cloud  had  stood.  It  was  not  till  I 
reached  the  Pont  de  I'Alma  that  I  learned  the 
nature  of  the  accident.  The  cartridge  factory 
at  Crenelle  had  blown  up.  The  feathers  were 
formed  by  millions  of  cartridges  bursting  in 
the  air. 

That  was  one  of  the  two  sights.  The  other 
was  the  pulling  down  of  the  Vendome  Column 
on  I5th  May. 

I  saw  the  Column  fall  from  the  same  window 
near  the  bottom  of  the  Rue  de  la  Paix  at  which 
Laurence  Oliphant  had  stood  on  i8th  March 
(the  day  of  the  outbreak  of  the  Commune),  when 
a  bullet  coming  through  the  glass,  two  inches 
from  his  head,  brought  him  a  message,  as  he 
told  me  an  hour  afterwards,  that  he  was  to 
leave  Paris  at  once  and  go  back  to  Mr  Harris 
in  America.  The  bullet  was  still  in  the  wall. 

At  the  foot  of  the  Column  the  bronze  sheathing 
had  been  partially  stripped  off,  and  the  stone- 
work cut  away  to  half  its  thickness,  so  as  to 
facilitate  breaking.  Ropes  had  been  laid  on 
from  the  top  to  a  windlass  in  the  street.  A 
long  bed  of  fagots,  twenty  feet  thick,  had  been 


THE    COMMUNE.  145 

prepared  to  receive  the  falling  mass,  and,  in 
expectation  of  a  great  shock,  every  window  in 
the  neighbourhood  had  been  pasted  over  with 
crossed  slips  of  paper,  so  as  to  prevent  fracture. 
The  afternoon  was  fine;  the  crowd  was  great, 
though  made  up  mainly  of  the  small  minority 
of  the  population  which  sympathised  with  the 
Commune :  it  filled  every  inch  from  the  Rue 
de  Rivoli  to  the  Boulevard,  excepting  the  Place 
Vendome  itself,  which  was  reserved  for  the  Com- 
munard authorities.  A  red  flag  had  been  fas- 
tened to  the  statue,  and  flew  out  in  the  breeze. 
About  three  o'clock  the  windlass  was  manned 
and  the  ropes  hauled  taut,  and  then  began  the 
effort  to  drag  the  column  down ;  but,  notwith- 
standing the  chasm  at  its  base,  it  held  solidly, 
and  would  not  move.  Fiercely,  but  vainly,  the 
strain  at  the  bars  went  on.  Suddenly,  something 
smashed ;  the  windlass  flew  back ;  half-a-dozen 
men  were  flung  lumberingly  into  the  air  by  the 
recoil;  and  the  attempt  in  that  shape  had  to 
be  abandoned.  After  a  delay  of  an  hour,  during 
which  the  stone  was  cut  still  further  away,  until 
the  column  at  that  point  was  pared  down  to 
about  a  quarter  of  its  substance,  longer  ropes 
were  procured,  their  ends  were  passed  into  the 
crowd,  hundreds  of  eager  hands  laid  hold  of 

K 


146  SOME    MEMORIES   OF   PARIS. 

them,  and  once  again  the  pull  commenced,  this 
time  with  direct  traction. 

I  had  got  the  statue  into  line  with  a  chimney 
in  the  Rue  Castiglione,  so  as  to  be  able  to  detect 
the  slightest  oscillation ;  but  there  was  none  at 
all, — the  column,  all  wounded  as  it  was,  stood 
immovable.  Five  minutes  passed,  five  minutes 
of  excited  hope  to  me,  for,  from  the  braveness 
of  the  resistance,  it  almost  seemed  as  if  the 
destroying  brutes  would  not  be  able  to  succeed. 
At  last  a  shiver  ran  down  my  back ;  I  had  become 
conscious,  after  a  particularly  savage  jerk  on  the 
ropes,  that  the  line  between  the  chimney  and  the 
statue  was  no  longer  exactly  straight.  Slowly — 
very  slowly — the  statue  swerved  past  the  chim- 
ney ;  slowly  the  great  column  bowed  towards  me 
— never  did  any  one  receive  so  superb  a  saluta- 
tion; slowly  it  descended,  so  slowly  that  it  almost 
seemed  to  hesitate :  in  a  great  haze  of  spurting 
dust  it  fell.  There  was  scarcely  any  noise,  and 
no  tremor  of  the  air  or  ground ;  but  the  twenty 
feet  of  fagots  were  flattened  down  to  nothing, 
and  the  dust  rose  thick  like  fog. 

With  a  wild  rush  and  frantic  shouts,  the 
people  dashed  past  the  sentries  into  the  Place 
Vendome,  leaped  upon  the  dislocated  fragments, 
and  howled  coarse  insults  at  them. 


THE    COMMUNE.  147 

Mournfully  I  went  away,  murmuring  to  my- 
self, "  Poor  France  !  " 

All  the  same,  that,  too,  was  a  sight  to  see. 

A  few  days  afterwards,  on  Monday,  22d  May, 
about  seven  in  the  morning,  a  servant  rushed 
into  my  bedroom,  and  woke  me  with  a  shout 
of  "  Monsieur,  Monsieur,  the  tricolour  is  on  the 
Arch  of  Triumph  !  "  I  jumped  to  the  window, 
and  there  it  was.  Its  presence  there,  in  the 
place  of  the  red  flag  of  the  day  before,  could 
mean  nothing  else  than  that  the  Versailles  troops 
had  at  last  got  inside  Paris,  and  had  advanced 
already  as  far  as  the  Arch.  In  that  case  they 
might  at  any  moment  reach  the  Boulevard  Males- 
herbes  !  That  was  indeed  interesting. 

I  flung  my  clothes  on  and  went  on  to  the  bal- 
cony. A  dozen  Communards  in  uniform  were 
at  that  instant  hurrying  downwards  past  the 
house,  looking  nervously  behind  them  as  they 
went.  I  glanced  all  round,  but  nothing  else 
was  visible.  It  was  not  till  several  minutes 
had  passed  that  I  caught  sight  of  something 
red  moving  between  the  shrubs  of  the  Park 
Monceau.  It  was  the  trouser  of  a  real  French 
soldier :  the  troops  were  there.  An  officer,  fol- 
lowed by  a  few  men,  came  cautiously  out  from 
the  trees,  advanced  to  the  entrance  of  the  Park, 


148  SOME   MEMORIES   OF   PARIS. 

and  looked  down  the  Boulevard.  The  instant 
he  was  seen  from  below  a  dozen  shots  were  fired 
at  him ;  the  bullets  whistled  past  us,  high  up. 
I  hastened  down ;  but  before  I  got  to  the  door 
three  or  four  of  the  red  trousers  had  run  into 
the  roadway,  had  thrown  themselves  on  their 
faces,  and  had  begun  shooting  down  the  hill  in 
answer  to  the  Communards.  By  this  time  firing 
had  become  general  throughout  the  neighbour- 
hood ;  but  its  desultory  weakness  showed  that 
no  serious  resistance  was  being  offered  imme- 
diately round  us.  By  eight  o'clock  all  the  posts 
of  the  Commune  within  a  quarter  of  a  mile  of 
us  had  been  turned  by  other  troops  and  evacu- 
ated by  their  defenders,  so  that,  excepting  a 
chance  bullet  travelling  here  or  there  over  the 
house-tops,  we  got  out  of  immediate  fire,  and 
were  able  to  stand  almost  safely  in  the  street. 
As  our  house  was  the  only  one  inhabited,  the 
wounded  were  brought  in  there,  and  an  ambu- 
lance established  in  the  courtyard,  the  men  being 
laid  on  carpets  pulled  off  the  staircase.  A  surgeon 
asked  me  to  put  up  a  Geneva  flag  at  the  door,  to 
make  it  known  that  doctoring  was  going  on  there; 
so  I  ran  up  again  and  asked  for  something  to 
make  a  red  cross.  The  little  girls  tore  up  the 
scarlet  skirt  of  a  big  doll  and  pinned  bands  of 


THE    COMMUNE.  149 

it  on  a  napkin,  which  we  nailed  to  a  broom 
handle.  That  flag  hung  out  until,  late  in  the 
day,  the  ambulance  was  moved  nearer  the  ad- 
vanced posts. 

In  another  hour  the  number  of  prisoners 
massed  on  the  pavement  under  guard  had 
grown  so  considerable  that  it  became  neces- 
sary to  provide  a  temporary  lock-up  for  them, 
until  cavalry  arrived  to  supply  an  escort  to 
Versailles ;  the  cellars  of  an  unfinished  house 
close  by  were  utilised  for  the  purpose.  I 
spent  the  entire  day  in  the  courtyard  of  that 
house,  looking  on  at  the  coming  in  of  the 
constantly  increasing  crowd  of  prisoners  —  a 
most  curious  and  impressive  exhibition,  far 
more  interesting  than  the  fighting.  Some 
cringed,  some  swaggered,  some  defied,  some 
cast  themselves  upon  their  knees  and  cried. 
About  one -tenth  of  them  were  women,  who, 
generally,  were  more  violent  than  the  men.  A 
few  of  them  were  wounded.  On  their  arrival 
in  the  courtyard  their  shirts  were  torn  open 
and  their  pockets  turned  out;  the  names  they 
chose  to  give  were  taken  down  (the  list  was 
made  so  carelessly  that  future  identification 
was  scarcely  possible),  and  then,  with  much 
brutality,  they  were  thrust  down  into  the 


150  SOME    MEMORIES    OF    PARIS. 

cellars.  I  remember  many  details,  strange, 
sad,  ridiculous,  or  odious,  that  would  be  worth 
telling;  but  I  limit  myself  to  a  single  case, — 
and  I  choose  that  one,  not  because  it  was  more 
remarkable  than  a  dozen  others  which  came 
under  my  notice  that  day,  but  because  I  hap- 
pened to  be  able  to  follow  it  out  to  what  ap- 
peared to  be  its  end,  and  can  therefore  narrate 
it  completely. 

About  ten  o'clock  a  young  linesman  staggered 
into  the  courtyard,  bareheaded,  ghastly  pale, 
his  tunic  half  stripped  off.  His  neck  was  cut 
deeply  open  at  the  bottom  of  the  right  side  for 
a  length  of  nearly  six  inches,  and  the  severed 
flesh  hung  down  on  to  the  shoulder  in  a  thick 
scarlet  fold ;  he  dripped  with  blood,  and,  liter- 
ally, spattered  it  about  him  as  he  reeled  in. 
He  still  held  his  rifle  with  his  left  hand,  and 
with  the  right  he  dragged  after  him  a  young 
woman  with  nothing  on  her  but  a  torn  chemise 
and  uniform  trousers  (which  indicated  that  sht 
had  been  a  cantiniere  of  the  Commune).  With 
a  last  effort,  the  soldier  flung  the  woman  to- 
wards us,  stammering  out  hoarsely,  "She  has 
killed  my  captain;  she  has  killed  two  of  my 
comrades;  she  has  cut  my  throat;  and  yet  I 
bring  her  to  you  alive ! "  And  then  the  poor 


THE    COMMUNE.  151 

young  fellow  dropped  heavily,  his  rifle  ringing 
on  the  stones  as  it  fell  with  him. 

"Tie  that  woman's  hands  behind  her," 
ordered  the  commanding  officer,  as  the  soldier 
was  put  upon  a  litter  for  conveyance  to  the 
ambulance.  Silent  and  breathless  stood  the 
woman ;  she  seemed  to  expect  immediate 
death.  Her  shoulders,  her  tattered  chemise, 
her  arms  and  hands,  were  splashed  everywhere 
with  blood;  the  expression  of  her  white  face, 
with  the  hard  glazed  eyes,  the  clenched  teeth, 
and  the  strained  distortion  of  the  corners  of 
the  mouth,  was  demoniacal.  Straight  she 
stood  up  before  us,  her  head  thrown  back  as 
if  to  dare  the  worst ;  she  made  no  answer  to 
the  questions  put  to  her.  There  was  discus- 
sion amongst  the  officers  as  to  whether  it  was 
not  their  duty  to  have  her  shot  at  once.  But, 
though  the  case  was  clear,  they  shrank  from 
commencing  executions  by  a  woman,  and,  after 
some  hesitation,  spared  her,  taking  it  for 
granted  that,  when  tried,  she  would  be  con- 
demned. Her  arms  bound  back,  she  was  sent 
into  the  cellar.  She  was,  however,  the  only  one 
let  off;  from  that  moment  every  prisoner,  man 
or  woman,  brought  in  red-handed,  was  taken 
across  to  the  Park  and  executed  straight  away. 


152  SOME    MEMORIES   OF   PARIS. 

At  four  in  the  afternoon  the  first  column  of 
prisoners  was  formed  up  outside  to  march  down 
to  Versailles.  Under  the  pressure  of  many 
other  violent  sights,  I  had  forgotten  the 
murderess  of  the  morning,  and  when,  in  the 
ascending  stream  of  captives,  she  emerged  from 
the  dark  staircase  into  the  daylight,  her  appear- 
ance was  so  frightful  that,  for  some  seconds, 
I  did  not  recognise  her.  She  trickled  with 
sweat,  for  the  heat  below  had  been  terrific; 
the  blood  on  her  chemise  and  skin  had  dried 
into  black  cakes  that  stuck  to  her;  her  hair, 
dishevelled,  hung  in  glued,  glazed  spikes,  over 
her  eyes ;  she  had  evidently  been  sobbing,  and, 
as  she  could  not  move  her  hands,  had  been 
unable  to  wipe  her  face,  which  was  scored 
with  long  dirty  stripes  formed  by  tears  and 
perspiration,  and  looking  like  fresh  scars  of 
burns.  We  all  stared  at  her  with  horror. 
"Wash  down  that  woman,"  cried  one  of  the 
officers.  A  stable -bucket  full  of  water  and  a 
horse  -  sponge  were  brought,  and  a  corporal 
sluiced  her,  with  a  bitter  grin.  She  did  not 
flinch  one  inch  as  the  water  was  dashed  in 
her  face ;  exhausted  as  she  must  have  been  by 
fatigue,  emotion,  want  of  food,  and  the  sicken- 
ing atmosphere  in  which  she  had  just  passed 


THE    COMMUNE.  153 

six  hours,  she  stood  like  a  cliff:  she  shut  her 
eyes  and  compressed  her  lips,  that  was  all. 
Dripping,  half-naked,  horrible,  she  tottered  out 
into  the  street  and  took  her  place  in  the 
column,  to  walk  twelve  miles.  The  cavalry 
escort  formed  up  on  the  flanks.  The  colonel 
roared  out  to  the  prisoners :  "  Look  here ;  if 
any  one  of  you  dares  to  attempt  to  leave  the 
ranks  he  will  instantly  be  shot  down  !  Hats 
off.  On  to  the  ground  your  hats.  Traitors 
like  you  march  bareheaded.  Hats  on  the 
ground,  I  tell  you,  or  I'll  fire  into  the  heap 
of  you ! " 

Five  hundred  hats  and  caps,  of  all  sorts  and 
shapes  and  colours,  fell  into  the  dust  (to  be 
picked  up  by  the  poor  of  the  neighbourhood), 
and  the  wretched  procession  started. 

Two  months  afterwards  I  was  going  through 
the  prison  of  the  women  of  the  Commune  at 
Versailles  with  General  Appert,  who  then  com- 
manded there.  In  one  of  the  long  rooms 
thirty  or  forty  women  of  all  ages  were  sitting 
reading  or  working.  At  a  table  near  a  window 
was  a  young  woman  writing.  She  wore  a  neat 
brown  dress,  and  had  very  bright  well-dressed 
hair,  and  singularly  delicate  hands.  A  vague 
memory  started  in  me.  Surely  I  had  met  her 


154  SOME   MEMORIES   OF   PARIS. 

somewhere.  She  was  the  murderess  of  22d 
May !  I  had  seen  those  white  fingers  of 
another  colour;  I  had  seen  that  hair  less 
glossy  and  less  combed.  I  stared  at  her  for 
an  instant,  half- bewildered,  half- horrified,  and 
then  asked  General  Appert  to  find  out  who 
she  was.  He  called  the  matron  and  inquired. 
The  answer  came,  "  Oh,  General,  she  is  the 
best  and  quietest  of  them  all,  and  really  an 
educated  person.  The  lady  visitors  are  quite 
fond  of  her,  she  is  so  gentle  and  obedient.  Of 
course  there  may  have  been  some  reason  for 
sending  her  here ;  and,  besides,  it  is  suspicious 
that  not  a  single  friend  has  come  to  see  her, 
and  that  we  cannot  find  out  who  she  is.  But 
there  is  not  the  slightest  evidence  against  her, 
nor  even  any  imputation ;  so,  as  she  is  accused 
of  nothing,  she  will,  I  expect,  be  set  at  liberty." 
As  I  listened,  another  voice  came  back  to  me. 
I  heard  a  broken  cry  of  "  She  has  killed  my 
captain ;  she  has  killed  two  of  my  comrades ; 
she  has  cut  my  throat ;  and.  yet  I  bring  her 
to  you  alive !  "  The  poor  boy  who  had  stam- 
mered out  those  words  was,  in  all  probability, 
dead,  and  could  bear  no  testimony.  Ought  I 
to  interfere-?  I  could  only  repeat  what  I  had 
heard  the  soldier  say,  and  that  would  have 


THE    COMMUNE.  155 

been  no  proof.  The  other  witnesses  of  the 
scene  were  scattered,  with  their  regiments,  all 
over  France.  I  held  my  tongue.  The  woman 
had  perceived  that  she  was  noticed,  and  looked 
at  me  uneasily,  with  something  of  the  fiendish 
expression  I  had  seen  in  her  face  before.  I 
heard  no  more  of  her,  and  have  always  sup- 
posed that  she  returned  in  peace  to  private 
life.  Perhaps  she  married,  had  children,  and 
loved  them. 

I  may  mention  here  that  the  majority  of  the 
prisoners  were  set  free  untried,  from  the  same 
lack  of  evidence  against  them.  Indeed,  it  could 
scarcely  be  otherwise,  for  it  was  impossible  with 
such  a  mass  of  captives,  collected  under  such 
conditions  of  disorder,  and  brought  in  so  thickly, 
to  write  down  in  each  case,  with  a  view  to  future 
trial,  the  nature  of  the  charge  and  the  names  of 
the  witnesses.  Futhermore,  out  of  the  32,000 
prisoners  sent  to  Versailles  a  not  inconsiderable 
proportion  were  innocent  of  all  connection  with 
the  Commune,  and  were  arrested  by  error  or 
accident.  I  will  give  one  example  of  the  mis- 
takes that  happened. 

In  the  next  house  to  me  an  old  coachman  had 
been  left,  at  the  beginning  of  the  first  siege,  to 
look  after  a  horse.  The  horse  had  been  seized 


156  SOME    MEMORIES   OF   PARIS. 

by  the  authorities  and  eaten,  so  the  man  re- 
mained with  nothing  to  do,  waiting  for  the 
return  of  his  master.  I  chatted  with  him  some- 
times, during  the  latter  part  of  the  Commune, 
as  he  stood  smoking  at  the  door,  and  a  very 
decent  old  fellow  he  was.  Well,  one  morning, 
during  the  fighting  week,  he  was  looking  on  at 
the  formation,  in  the  roadway,  of  a  column  of 
prisoners  about  to  start,  when  he  saw  amongst 
them  a  groom,  who  was  a  friend  of  his.  He 
stepped  out  to  ask  why  he  was  there,  and  when, 
after  speaking  for  a  minute,  he  turned  to  come 
away,  was  thrust  back  into  the  column  by  the 
soldiers  of  the  escort,  who,  seeing  him  amongst 
the  prisoners,  took  him,  not  unnaturally  per- 
haps, for  one  of  them.  He  shouted  in  terror 
to  the  people  on  the  pavement,  many  of 
whom  knew  him,  and  two  or  three  of  them 
rushed  to  the  prison  to  look  for  me  and  to  beg 
me  to  get  the  poor  fellow  released.  It  happened, 
however,  that  the  officers  on  duty  at  that  mo- 
ment were  strangers  to  me,  and  some  minutes 
passed  before  I  found  any  one  to  whom  I  could 
appeal.  When  at  last  a  captain  of  infantry  had 
consented  to  interfere,  the  column  had  started, 
and  we  had  to  run  after  it  for  some  distance, 
and  to  parley  with  the  commander  of  the  rear- 


THE    COMMUNE.  157 

guard.  Luckily  he  was  good  -  natured :  he 
listened  to  us  pleasantly,  believed  my  story,  and 
had  the  man  brought  out  and  delivered  up  to 
me.  But  the  shock  had  completely  upset  the 
poor  old  coachman ;  he  could  scarcely  stand 
from  emotion ;  he  was  got  home  and  put  to 
bed ;  after  some  days  he  became  better,  but 
remained  really  ill,  his  heart  having  become 
affected.  He  left  Paris,  without  his  wages, 
directly  the  trains  began  to  run,  and  when  last  I 
heard  of  him,  was  dying  in  his  native  village. 

Now  I  take  up  my  story  again  on  that  Mon- 
day. The  day  passed  amidst  scenes  of  pain, 
absurdity,  and  ferocity ;  but  there  was  intense 
interest  in  it  all,  it  was  human  nature  in  a  form 
which  is  not  usually  beheld,  and  I  could  not 
tear  myself  away.  At  last,  however,  the  time 
for  dinner  came,  and  I  went  in  to  eat  it.  The 
little  ones  told  me,  with  a  mixture  of  awe  and  of 
the  ignorant  calm  of  children,  that  they  had 
been  watching  the  execution  parties  going 
across  the  road  into  the  Park,  and  had  listened 
to  the  reports  of  the  rifles,  especially  to  the  coup 
de  grace,  which  seemed  to  have  impressed  them 
most.  Happily,  they  had  not  seen  the  actual 
shooting,  for  it  was  hidden  by  the  trees. 

The  next  day,  Tuesday,  the  same  scenes  con- 


158  SOME    MEMORIES   OF    PARIS. 

tinued.  Amongst  the  prisoners  brought  in 
during  the  morning  was  an  Englishman,  the 
charge  against  him  being  that  he  was  wander- 
ing in  the  streets,  and  was  unable  to  give  an 
account  of  himself.  He  could  speak  no  French, 
so  I  was  asked  to  question  him.  He  told  me 
he  was  waiter  in  an  eating-house  for  English 
grooms  in  the  upper  part  of  the  Champs  Ely- 
s£es,  and  that  the  master  (who  had  formerly 
been  a  trooper  in  the  Life  Guards)  had  stepped 
out  of  his  door  the  afternoon  before  to  look 
about  him,  in  the  belief  that  fighting  round 
there  was  over,  and  had  instantly  been  shot 
through  the  back  by  a  sentry  at  the  nearest 
street-corner.  The  man  had  died  in  the  night, 
and  the  widow  had  sent  the  waiter  in  the  morn- 
ing to  the  Batignolles,  to  take  the  news  to  a 
relation  there.  There  was  a  disregard  of  possi- 
bilities about  this  proceeding  which  indicated 
the  state  of  mind  of  that  widow.  I  told  the 
man  that,  according  to  the  news  we  had,  fight- 
ing was  going  on  in  every  street  of  the  Batig- 
nolles, that  he  might  as  well  try  to  walk  to  the 
bottom  of  Vesuvius,  and  that  he  must  go  back. 
Thereon  he  asked  me  plaintively,  "  But,  sir, 
can't  I  go  to  England  at  once  ?  I  do  so  want 
to  get  out  of  this.  I  am  so  frightened.  Is 


THE    COMMUNE.  159 

there  a  train  ? "  I  obtained  for  him  a  pass 
from  the  general  of  brigade,  started  him  off 
again  to  the  Champs  Elysees,  and  hoped  he 
got  there. 

That  day  the  fighting  seemed  to  thicken  up 
again  behind  us  :  the  Communards  were  defend- 
ing themselves  obstinately  at  a  barricade  in  the 
Place  Clichy,  which  was  about  800  yards  in 
our  rear,  and  lost  bullets  began  to  come  in  at 
the  back  of  our  house.  We  stuffed  the  windows 
with  mattresses,  but  the  protection  was  incom- 
plete. In  the  afternoon  one  of  the  little  chil- 
dren was  opening  a  glass  door  into  the  hall, 
when  suddenly  the  pane  above  her  smashed,  and 
the  splinters  fell  around  her.  Her  first  thought 
was  that  in  some  way  she  had  broken  it  herself, 
and  would  be  scolded ;  but  it  was  seen  at  once 
that  a  plunging  bullet  had  come  through  the 
top  of  the  hall  window  above  the  mattress,  had 
passed  just  over  the  child's  head,  had  struck 
obliquely  the  glass  panel  of  the  opened  door, 
and  had  cut  itself  in  two  on  the  sharp  edge. 
The  two  halves  of  that  bullet  had  fallen  on  the 
floor:  the  child  picked  them  up  and  kept  them. 
During  the  day  forty-nine  bullets  got  in  at 
different  windows  of  the  house,  but  no  one  was 
touched.  At  night  we  had  to  lie  down  on  the 


l6o  SOME    MEMORIES   OF    PARIS. 

floor  in  the  central  corridor  of  the  flat,  so  as  to 
obtain  protection  from  the  walls. 

But  before  we  went  to  what  we  called  our  beds, 
the  fires  burst  out.  At  twelve  o'clock  we  counted 
twenty-two  distinct  centres  of  conflagration  in 
the  vast  area  of  roofs,  though,  of  course,  we 
could  not  tell  exactly  where  they  were.  The 
glare  of  the  sky  became  so  fierce  that  it  seemed 
almost  as  if  the  atmosphere  itself  was  burning. 
We  gazed  with  consternation  above  us  and 
below  us  at  the  universal  furnace.  And  the 
great  rolling  masses  of  reddened  smoke  in- 
creased the  horror  of  the  scene,  for  though  they 
obscured  somewhat  the  vividness  of  the  flames 
and  dimmed  down  their  colours,  they  added  a 
particular  effect  of  lurid,  lowering,  looming 
awfulness,  that  could  only  be  called  hellish. 
And,  as  if  all  this  were  not  enough,  bullets 
went  on  crackling  past  us,  and  rang  against 
the  walls  opposite,  and  clinked  upon  the  house- 
tops, and  shells  were  bursting  near,  and  broken 
glass  and  smashed  stone  and  shivered  slates 
were  falling  in  the  streets,  and  now  and  then 
a  shriek  of  suffering  arose.  It  was  not  a  night 
to  be  forgotten. 

On  the  Wednesday  morning  a  dense  pall  of 
smoke  hung  over  Paris :  the  sun  could  not 


THE   COMMUNE.  l6l 

pierce  it ;  the  gloom  was  altogether  special, 
unlike  anything  that  fog  produces,  veiled, 
shaded,  blurred,  but  not  opaque,  or  even 
(properly)  obscure.  We  saw  the  way  about, 
but  the  way  seemed  unreal.  And  when,  amidst 
that  gloom,  the  news  spread  out  that  the  Tuil- 
eries,  the  Hotel  de  Ville,  the  Ministry  of  Fin- 
ance, the  Conseil  d'Etat,  and  other  buildings 
of  all  sorts,  had  been  destroyed,  there  grew 
a  rage  amongst  the  peaceful  portion  of  the 
population  that  made  them  scream  for  ven- 
geance. They  had  been  proud  of  their  loved 
Paris,  and  much  of  their  Paris  was  no  more. 
They  tried,  in  their  fury,  to  lynch  prisoners, 
and  acts  of  cruelty  were  committed,  under  the 
impulse  of  wild  rage,  that  are  known  only  in 
times  of  civil  war.  I  saw  that  morning  five 
men  led  out  for  execution,  their  arms  tied  back ; 
and,  as  they  went,  a  crowd  of  women  rushed 
at  them,  forced  them  on  to  their  knees,  struck 
them  in  the  face,  and  spat  at  them.  If  the 
soldiers  sent  to  shoot  them  had  not  rescued  them, 
those  women  would  have  torn  their  hair  off. 

The  close  firing  of  the  day  and  night  before 

was  over;    the  Communards   had   been  driven 

back  at   every  point.      I   heard   that   the   Rue 

Royale    was    delivered,    so,    after    breakfast,    I 

L 


l62  SOME    MEMORIES   OF   PARIS. 

went  down  to  see.  Notwithstanding  the  chok- 
ing smoke,  a  considerable  number  of  people 
had  come  out,  and  were  staring,  horror-struck, 
at  the  ruins.  The  killed  on  the  Versailles  side 
had  been  removed,  but  those  of  the  Commune 
were  still  strewn  about ;  and,  here  and  there, 
a  dead  horse  was  being  cut  up  into  steaks  by 
famished  women,  whose  supplies  of  food  had 
been  stopped  since  the  fighting  began.  The 
day  passed  in  comparative  quiet,  for  the  near- 
est fighting  was  removed  a  mile  from  us. 

In  the  evening  I  walked,  with  two  officers  off 
duty,  along  the  Boulevard  des  Italiens.  Of 
course  there  was  no  gas ;  the  moon  was  hidden 
by  the  shroud  of  smoke;  the  shadows  were  so 
misty  that  they  were  scarcely  recognisable,  the 
lighted  surfaces  so  dim  that  they  brightened 
nothing.  The  ground  was  littered  everywhere 
with  smashed  fragments  from  the  houses,  with 
broken  glass,  with  leaves  and  branches  shot  off 
the  trees,  with  paper  torn  from  walls  where  the 
innumerable  proclamations  of  the  Commune  had 
been  posted  up,  with  twisted  bits  of  metal  and 
sometimes  abandoned  arms.  All  this  ruin 
crunched  under  our  feet  as  we  advanced  along 
the  centre  of  the  roadway,  in  single  file,  five 
vards  from  each  other,  so  as  to  offer  smaller 


THE    COMMUNE.  163 

marks  in  the  event  of  our  being  fired  at.  We 
got  as  far  as  the  Rue  Montmartre ;  but  there 
we  were  stopped  by  officers,  who  told  us  it 
was  impossible  to  go  farther,  because  there  was 
an  untaken  barricade  in  front.  So  back  we 
came,  utterly  alone,  staring  round  us  at  the 
murky  sky,  the  dusky  moon,  the  tattered  trees, 
the  shot-marked  houses,  and  listening  to  the 
screeching  of  rifles,  the  grating  jar  of  mitrail- 
leuses, and  the  crackling  of  our  own  steps. 

Could  that  be  Paris  ?  Were  we,  in  reality, 
on  the  Boulevard  des  Italiens  ? 

Several  times  the  sentries  at  the  street-corners 
called  to  me  to  join  the  chaine  at  the  fires  and 
help  to  pass  the  water  -  buckets  (as  was  the 
usage  then),  but  my  companions  answered  for 
me  and  got  me  clear. 

After  this  infernal  scene  the  comparative  still- 
ness of  the  Boulevard  Malesherbes  was  quite 
soothing.  We  walked  slowly,  talking  of  the 
day's  work,  and  had  got  up  nearly  to  my  house, 
when  one  of  the  officers,  gazing  ahead,  ex- 
claimed, "  Why,  what's  that  ?  No,  surely,  it 
cannot  be  a  cab !  " 

A  cab  in  a  street  of  Paris  that  night  was 
about  as  probable  as  an  ostrich  on  an  iceberg ; 
and  yet  a  cab  there  really  was,  and  at  my  door ! 


164  SOME    MEMORIES    OF    PARIS. 

I  stared  at  it  in  utter  incomprehension.  At  that 
instant  the  concierge  sauntered  out,  and  I  cried 
to  him,  "  What  is  that  cab  doing  here  ?  Where 
on  earth  has  it  come  from  ?" 

"  Gentleman  just  arrived  for  you,  sir.  He's 
gone  up." 

Never  did  I  leap  up-stairs  so  fast.  My  door 
was  open :  I  rushed  into  the  hall ;  and  there, 
taking  off  an  overcoat,  was — Oliphant. 

He  had  returned  to  England  two  days  before 
from  the  United  States,  had  stopped  a  few 
hours  in  London  to  arrange  with  the  '  Times ' 
to  recommence  his  correspondence,  and  to  get 
from  the  Foreign  Office  a  despatch  to  carry 
to  the  Embassy  as  a  sort  of  passport,  and  then 
he  had  come  over  with  the  intention  of  reaching 
Paris  somehow.  As  the  Gare  du  Nord  was 
under  fire  that  day,  no  train  could  enter,  so 
he  had  been  turned  out  at  St  Denis  early  in 
the  afternoon.  After  some  seeking  he  had  dis- 
covered an  adventurous  cabman  who,  for  money, 
was  willing  to  run  risks,  had  been  driven,  miles 
round,  by  Courbevoie,  had  managed  to  reach 
the  Porte  Maillot,  had  declared  himself  to  the 
guard  there  as  a  special  messenger  to  the 
British  Embassy,  and,  at  last,  at  ten  o'clock, 
had  reached  the  Arch  of  Triumph,  to  look 


THE    COMMUNE.  165 

down  on  Paris  blazing.  After  rilling  his  memory 
with  that  picture,  he  had  turned  to  the  left, 
and  had  come  to  me. 

I  told  the  cabman  to  find  a  stable  somewhere, 
and  then  I  gave  Oliphant  supper,  which  he 
needed  badly,  got  a  bed  arranged  for  him,  and 
talked  to  him  till  four. 

Next  morning  I  obtained  a  local  pass  from 
the  general  of  division  nearest  us,  and  we  two, 
after  leaving  the  despatch  at  the  Embassy, 
started  off  to  try  to  reach  the  headquarters 
of  General  Vinoy,  who  commanded,  under  Mar- 
shal MacMahon,  the  army  on  the  left  bank 
of  the  Seine.  Our  object  was  to  ask  him,  as 
old  acquaintances,  for  two  permis  de  circulation 
for  all  Paris,  so  as  to  be  able  to  go  anywhere, 
and  escape  the  fire-chaines.  We  succeeded  in 
our  attempt,  and  we  profited  by  the  opportunity 
to  see  a  good  deal.  One  of  the  results  was  that 
we  recognised  very  fully,  from  what  we  saw 
and  heard,  that  if  ever  an  army  had  sufficient 
reasons  for  relentless  repression,  it  was  on  that 
occasion.  It  was  said  at  the  time,  by  outsiders, 
that  it  was  monstrous  to  go  on  executing 
prisoners  as  was  done  that  week.  But,  in  all 
truth,  the  provocation  was  atrocious.  Half  the 
city  was  on  fire,  and  the  other  half  was  more 


l66  SOME    MEMORIES   OF    PARIS. 

or  less  destroyed  ;  the  fighting  was  furious  ;  and 
the  shame  of  the  whole  proceeding  was  infinitely 
augmented  by  its  being  performed  under  the 
eyes  of  the  German  army,  which  rubbed  its 
hands  with  approval.  Finally,  and  perhaps 
more  than  all,  the  fierce  blood  of  civil  war 
was  up,  and  cruelties  and  vengeances  were  em- 
ployed which,  happily,  are  now  unknown  in 
international  war.  Of  the  14,000  Communards 
killed  that  week,  8000  were  executed;  and  at 
the  moment  the  softest-hearted  of  the  spectators 
declared  it  was  not  half  enough. 

On  the  Thursday  evening  the  situation  had 
so  far  improved  that  a  dozen  Englishmen,  who 
had  run  over  to  see  what  was  passing,  managed 
to  get  into  the  place.  Some  of  them  were 
caught  at  once  for  the  chaines,  and  were  not 
liberated  until,  drenched  through,  they  had 
passed  buckets  for  some  hours.  Some  went 
about  with  us  on  the  Friday.  With  one  of 
them  (Mr  Cartwright  of  Aynhoe)  we  had  an 
odd  experience.  We  walked  up  the  Rue  Lafa- 
yette until  we  got  directly  under  the  line  of 
bombardment  from  Montmartre,  where  Ver- 
sailles batteries  were  established,  to  the  Pere 
la  Chaise,  which  was  still  held  by  the  Com- 
munards. The  shells  flew  over  our  heads  some 


THE    COMMUNE.  167 

hundred  yards  up,  and  we  positively  saw  them 
pass !  As  their  trajectory  was  high,  and  as 
we  stood  at  the  centre  of  the  chord  of  the 
arc  they  described,  our  eyes  had  time  to  follow, 
and  we  perceived,  at  almost  every  shot,  a  black 
thread  flash  through  the  air. 

On  the  Saturday  morning  Oliphant  and  I 
attempted  a  drive  in  the  cab,  and,  showing 
our  passes  every  five  minutes,  managed  to 
make  a  real  journey.  We  knew  that  the  whole 
left  bank  of  the  Seine  was  cleared  out,  and  we 
were  assured  (though  incorrectly,  as  we  found) 
that,  on  the  right  bank,  fighting  was  continuing 
only  in  the  quarters  of  Belleville  and  Pere  la 
Chaise.  So  we  started  down  the  Champs 
Elysees,  past  the  Palais  de  PIndustrie,  in  the 
glass  roof  of  which  every  pane  seemed  smashed, 
and  made  our  first  stoppage  at  the  still  burning 
Palace  of  the  Legion  of  Honour,  on  the  Quai 
d'Orsay,  in  order  to  peer  into  the  cellars,  where 
all  the  bedding  from  the  Legion's  schools  at 
St  Denis,  Ecouen,  and  Les  Loges  had  been 
piled  up  for  safety  before  the  siege.  A  thou- 
sand woollen  mattresses,  tightly  stacked,  had 
charred,  in  the  absence  of  all  draught,  into  a 
mass  of  silent,  stagnant  fire :  it  was  strange 
that  so  vast  and  so  intense  a  furnace  (the  heat 


l68  SOME    MEMORIES   OF   PARIS. 

of  which  was  scarcely  endurable,  even  at  the 
distance  where  we  stood)  could  be  so  still,  so 
hushed,  so  peaceful :  not  a  flicker  could  be 
seen,  not  a  flutter  could  be  heard ;  all  was 
mute,  motionless,  white-hot  smoulder. 

Farther  on,  as  we  followed  the  quays,  the 
signs  of  battle  became  more  frequent,  and  again 
we  got  out  of  the  cab  to  gaze  about  us.  The 
bodies  of  several  Communards  had  been  thrown 
over  the  walls  on  to  the  river  strand,  to  put 
them  out  of  the  way,  and  were  lying  there 
almost  in  the  water.  More  dead  horses  were 
being  cut  up  for  food,  and  a  horrible  mess  they 
made.  People  were  out,  but  said  they  were 
afraid  to  leave  their  own  immediate  district. 

At  last  we  reached  the  Pont  d'Austerlitz, 
crossed  it,  and  became  aware  that  we  were 
nearing  actual  fighting.  The  shooting  sounded 
closer,  the  dead  were  more  numerous,  and,  from 
the  fresh  colour  of  the  blood-pools  round  them, 
they  seemed  to  have  fallen  recently.  A  sentry 
at  the  farther  end  of  the  bridge  told  us  that 
the  barricade  there  (round  which  we  had  diffi- 
culty in  squeezing  and  lifting  our  cab)  had  only 
been  carried  that  morning,  and  that  at  that 
moment  the  troops  had  not  got  beyond  the 
Place  de  la  Bastille,  which  was  close  by.  As 


THE    COMMUNE.  l6g 

we  emerged  on  to  the  Boulevard  Contrescarpe, 
along  the  edge  of  the  Canal,  and  caught  sight 
of  the  spectacle  it  presented,  Oliphant  ex- 
claimed, "A  battle-field!"  There  must  have 
been  forty  or  fifty  bodies  there,  lying,  in  some 
instances,  so  close  together  that  our  cab  had 
to  make  zigzags  to  avoid  driving  over  them. 
One  man,  on  the  pavement,  had  fallen  on  his 
hands  and  knees  against  a  bench,  and  had 
stiffened  in  that  position :  his  head  hung  down 
between  his  arms,  and  his  long  hair  dangled 
on  the  ground.  That  sight  upset  our  cabman ; 
for  a  time  he  was  unable  to  go  on,  and  shut 
his  eyes  and  trembled.  "  We  shall  have  to 
put  him  inside,  and  do  the  driving  ourselves," 
remarked  Oliphant.  But  he  got  his  nerves 
together,  and  managed  to  keep  hold  of  the 
reins.  As  we  neared  the  Place  de  la  Bastille 
we  saw,  amidst  thick  smoke,  half  a  battery  of 
artillery,  in  position,  firing  down  the  Faubourg 
St  Antoine,  and  an  officer  came  running  to- 
wards us,  shouting  furiously  the  order  to  stop. 
We  showed  our  passes  from  General  Vinoy, 
and  asked  to  see  the  colonel  in  command,  to 
whom  we  revealed  our  scheme  of  driving 
straight  on  and  of  returning  westwards  by  the 
line  of  the  inner  Boulevards.  He  swore  at  us 


I7O  SOME    MEMORIES   OF   PARIS. 

copiously,  and  told  us,  with  exuberant  exple- 
tives, that  if  we  did  not  go  back  at  once,  he 
would  send  us,  under  arrest,  to  headquarters. 
We  admitted  afterwards  that  he  had  some 
justification  for  the  view  he  took ;  but,  at 
the  moment,  we  were  vexed,  and  thought  him 
rude. 

We  had  to  return,  humbly,  by  the  way  we 
had  come ;  only  when  we  reached  the  river 
we  did  not  recross  it,  but  remained  on  the 
north  bank,  turning  to  the  right  along  the 
quays  and  into  back  streets,  in  nearly  every 
one  of  which  the  paving-stones  had  been  pulled 
up  to  form  shelter-trenches  or  small  barricades. 
The  result  was  that  the  roadway  was  composed 
mainly  of  alternate  wells  and  walls,  into  and 
over  which  we  floundered,  the  cab  bounding, 
tumbling,  and  straining  tumultuously :  why  it 
did  not  smash  up  into  molecules  will  remain 
for  ever  an  unsolved  mystery.  At  last  we 
reached  the  burned  Hotel  de  Ville. 

We  stopped  in  the  middle  of  the  great  Place, 
and  stared.  We  were  alone ;  not  another  soul 
was  in  sight.  For  the  first  few  moments,  in- 
stinctively, we  drew  somewhat  away  from  each 
other,  to  avoid  speaking  in  the  presence  of  such 
lamentable  ruin.  We  both  felt  that  silence  was 


THE   COMMUNE. 

the  truest  and  most  respectful  sympathy  we 
could  offer.  And  when  we  did  begin  to  talk, 
it  was  in  a  whisper.  The  destruction  was 
terrific ;  but  the  desolation  was  more  appalling 
than  the  destruction,  and  the  solitude  doubled 
the  desolation.  French  hands  had  wrought 
that  havoc,  but  there  was  not  a  Frenchman 
there  to  grieve.  For  some  minutes  we  gazed 
sadly,  and  then  the  habit  of  action  resumed 
its  influence,  and  Oliphant,  moving  towards 
the  gaping  central  gateway,  said  gently,  "  Let 
us  go  in." 

Now,  it  might  have  been  natural  for  firemen, 
in  working  uniform,  to  "  go  in  "  there  ;  but  it 
was  absolutely  unnatural  that  ordinary  people 
with  ordinary  clothes  should  attempt  to  do  so. 
The  four  outer  walls,  calcined,  roofless,  window- 
less,  still  served  as  an  enclosure ;  but,  so  far 
as  we  could  see,  the  entire  interior  had  disap- 
peared into  confused  heaps  of  broken,  blackened, 
shapeless  stones,  charred  timber,  and  bent  iron. 
Such  bits  of  inside  walls  as  remained  standing 
served  merely  as  props  for  the  piles  of  debris 
that  leaned  against  them ;  half-melted  gutter- 
pipes,  with  long  stalactites  of  lead  that  had 
chilled  as  it  dropped,  hung  about  like  trellises; 
from  every  pore  of  the  fuming  wreck  streamed 


172  SOME    MEMORIES    OF    PARIS. 

up  brown  smoke;  loosened  fragments  dropped 
and  roused  thick  echoes, — that  much  we  could 
perceive  through  the  yawning  openings :  what 
more  could  we  discover  if  we  went  in  ?  But, 
all  the  same,  we  did  go  in. 

As  we  emerged  from  under  the  scorched  dis- 
jointed archway,  a  block  of  marble  cornice  fell, 
from  somewhere,  almost  on  to  Oliphant.  He 
jumped  aside,  exclaiming,  "That  was  close!" 
We  found  our  way  barred  at  once,  and  in  every 
direction,  by  steep  tall  slopes  of  riven  pitchy 
stones ;  the  smoke  half  stifled  us ;  the  heat  was 
intense ;  our  eyes  were  stung  by  the  scorching 
dancing  glimmer  in  the  air.  We  looked  about, 
apparently  in  vain,  for  a  path  to  anywhere. 
At  last  Oliphant  pointed  to  what  looked  like 
a  cliff  of  coal,  some  twenty  feet  high,  away  in 
a  shadow  on  our  right,  and  said,  "  I  think  we 
could  get  up  there."  When  we  reached  the 
foot  of  it,  after  scrambling  over  blocks,  and 
bars,  and  chasms,  we  found  that,  like  the  rest, 
it  was  a  nearly  perpendicular  declivity  of  cinders 
and  smelted  rubble,  scorched,  murky,  burning 
hot,  tottering,  and  slippery  with  greasy  soot. 
It  would  have  been  awkward  to  get  up,  even 
if  it  had  been  clean;  but  with  its  covering  of 
thick  oily  smut,  it  seemed  almost  unclimbable. 


THE   COMMUNE.  173 

And  yet  we  did  climb  up  it.  We  burned  our 
boots,  we  blacked  our  clothes,  we  bruised  our 
knees,  we  chipped  and  broiled  our  hands ;  but 
we  clambered  to  the  summit  of  the  incline,  and, 
from  the  crest,  looked  down  into  what  had  been 
the  famous  inner  court  of  the  Hotel  de  Ville, 
where  had  stood  the  escalier  d'honneur  and  the 
glass  cascade.  It  was  a  crater  after  an  eruption, 
a  vast  fiercely  ravined  cavity  of  deadened  fire. 
The  smoke  blew  out  of  it  in  volcanic  clouds, 
and  inflamed  our  eyes  and  throats  still  more, 
and  the  stench  sickened  us.  We  were  told 
afterwards  that  several  Communards  had  got 
drunk  in  the  cellars,  had  gone  to  sleep,  and  had 
been  slowly  grilled  away  amongst  the  embers. 
It  was  impossible  to  stop  there — even  Oliphant 
avowed  that.  We  looked  round  intently,  made 
a  great  effort  to  fix  the  scene  upon  our  mem- 
ories, and  slid  down,  somehow,  to  the  ground. 
We  ran  out  into  the  open,  took  deep  breaths 
of  air,  laughed  at  each  other's  grime,  and  drove 
straight  home  to  clean  ourselves. 

Next  day  (Sunday,  28th  May)  the  last  de- 
fences of  the  Commune  were  stormed  by  the 
Versaillais,  and  the  insurrection  came  to  its 
end.  That  afternoon  6000  prisoners,  in  one 
column,  guarded  by  several  regiments  of  cavalry, 


174  SOME    MEMORIES    OF    PARIS. 

were  brought  along  the  Boulevards  on  their  way 
to  Versailles.  We  stood,  to  see  them  pass,  at 
the  top  of  the  Rue  de  la  Paix,  in  an  enormous 
crowd :  all  Paris  had  come  out,  exploding  with 
satisfaction,  to  hoot  the  captives.  I  have  looked 
on  at  many  scenes  of  grievous  misery  and  degra- 
dation, but  never  have  I  beheld  any  sight  so 
strangely  painful  as  that  march  past.  The  ex- 
ceptional aspect  of  abasement  of  that  mass  of 
wretches  arose  from  an  altogether  special  cause. 
It  was  produced  neither  by  the  prostrate  con- 
dition of  many  of  the  prisoners  (several  of  whom 
could  scarcely  drag  themselves  along),  nor  by 
the  hideous  expression  of  most  of  their  faces,  nor 
by  the  merciless  brutality  with  which  they  were 
treated  by  both  the  soldiers  and  the  mob :  it 
sprang  from  a  totally  different  characteristic  of 
the  sight — a  characteristic  that  nobody  had  ever 
beheld  before,  nor  perhaps  ever  imagined.  Al- 
most every  one  of  them  had  been  forced  to  turn 
his  coat  inside  out !  It  was  the  astonishing 
effect  of  that  livery  of  shame,  worn  by  such  a 
mass  of  men  at  once,  that  rendered  the  scene 
so  matchlessly  abject :  we  two  almost  shivered 
as  we  stared  at  that  spectacle  of  ignominy. 
We  had  not  conceived  it  possible  that  vile 
dishonour  could  express  itself  so  poignantly. 


THE    COMMUNE.  175 

Even  the  grotesqueness  of  the  parti-coloured 
sleeve-linings — many  of  the  pairs  being  of  dif- 
ferent stuffs  and  colours,  and  nearly  all  of  them 
in  rags — was  lamentable,  not  laughable.  And 
yet,  after  all,  notwithstanding  the  extraordin- 
arily repulsive  features  of  that  piebald  proces- 
sion, it  cannot  be  denied  that  it  was  a  fitting 
and  illustrative  ending  to  the  odious  and  imbe- 
cile Commune. 

On  the  Monday  morning  I  walked  with  Mr 
Cartwright  along  the  line  of  the  fortifications 
from  the  Porte  Maillot  to  the  Point  du  Jour, 
at  the  end  of  Auteuil,  in  order  to  see  the  damage 
done  by  the  bombardment.  The  smashing  had 
occurred  capriciously :  some  houses  had  almost 
escaped  ;  others  were  carried  away  down  to  the 
very  ground ;  others  again  had  fronts  or  sides 
shot  off,  but  were  otherwise  little  injured.  In 
two  cases,  where  the  facades  alone  had  disap- 
peared, the  furniture  of  four  floors  was  still 
standing  almost  undisturbed  in  the  opened 
rooms  as  in  a  doll's  house.  But  the  general 
total  of  destruction,  considerable  and  wide- 
spread as  it  was,  seemed  relatively  small  when 
we  considered  that  it  was  the  result  of  several 
weeks  of  continuous  shelling.  The  fortifications 
themselves  were  not  much  knocked  about, 


176  SOME    MEMORIES    OF    PARIS. 

though,  in  places,  the  ground  behind  them 
was  ploughed  deeply. 

The  cleaning  up  of  Paris,  which  commenced 
on  the  Sunday,  directly  after  the  passage  of 
the  prisoners,  was  pretty  well  completed  by 
the  Monday  night.  The  rapidity  with  which 
it  was  performed  astonished  everybody :  it  was 
only  achieved  because  everybody  helped.  Of 
course  certain  signs  of  fighting  remained  vis- 
ible; but  the  barricades,  the  holes,  the  fallen 
trees,  the  dirt,  vanished  in  twenty-four  hours. 
The  dead  were  carted  off;  the  paving-stones 
were  laid  back  roughly  in  their  places ;  the 
rubbish  was  swept  into  heaps.  The  sensa- 
tion of  delivery  was  so  keen  amongst  the  pop- 
ulation that  they  almost  rejoiced. 

I  terminate  these  recollections  by  quoting  a 
curious  definition  of  the  Commune,  given  to 
me  by  a  man  whose  name  is  known  in  England, 
but  whose  words  have  been  heard  by  few  Eng- 
lishmen. 

About  the  middle  of  June,  Oliphant's  mother 
and  Mr  Harris  arrived  together  in  Paris  from 
America.  Mr  Harris  remained  there  for  three 
months,  during  which  period  he  conveyed  to 
me,  with  the  assumption  of  inspiration  which 
was  proper  to  him,  a  certain  number  of  remark- 


THE    COMMUNE.  177 

ably  expressed  opinions.  One  of  them  described 
the  Commune  as  "  a  yell  from  the  lower  man ; 
an  up-seething  from  the  turbid  sources  ;  a  snatch 
at  the  impossible  and  the  undefined ;  a  failure 
where  success  would  have  meant  a  nation's 
shame." 


CHAPTER   VIII. 

MR   WORTH. 

TOWARDS  the  end  of  August  1871,  I  listened  one 
night  to  a  conversation  between  particularly 
competent  persons  about  the  probable  effects 
of  the  war  on  the  trade  and  prosperity  of  France. 
Most  of  the  talkers  were  convinced  that,  just  as, 
by  an  unvarying  natural  law,  the  number  of  births 
increases  always,  in  every  land,  after  a  sudden 
reduction  of  population  by  disease  or  battle,  so 
would  the  general  commerce  of  France  enter 
rapidly  into  a  period  of  remarkable  activity,  to 
make  up  for  the  year  just  lost.  As  concerned 
Paris  in  particular  there  was,  however,  less 
hopefulness :  it  was  argued  that  the  trades  of 
Paris  were,  in  the  main,  of  an  altogether  special 
nature ;  that  they  ministered  almost  entirely  to 
artificial  needs ;  that  their  marked  characteristic 
was  to  supply  the  unnecessary  and  even  the  frivol- 


MR  WORTH.  179 

ous  ;  that  ornaments,  artificial  flowers,  the  varied 
details  of  clothing,  furniture,  what  the  Germans 
call  "gallantry  wares,"  and  articles  de  Paris,  in- 
teresting as  they  were  as  local  products,  scarce- 
ly counted  amongst  the  real  elements  of  the 
national  dealings  of  France ;  and  that,  in  con- 
sequence, there  was  no  sufficient  reason  for 
anticipating  that  Paris  would  share  proportion- 
ately in  the  prompt  revival  of  ordinary  business 
which  was  predicted  confidently  for  the  rest  of 
the  country.1 

As  I  walked  home  I  thought  over  all  this, 
and  the  more  I  thought  the  more  the  subject 
stretched.  All  sorts  of  additional  ideas  started 
up;  my  fancies  grew  wider  and  clearer;  after 
branching  in  several  directions  they  assumed 
suddenly  a  specific  shape.  I  asked  myself  what 
had  been  the  effect  of  the  war  on  the  most 
conspicuous,  the  most  widely  ramified,  the  most 
labour-employing  of  all  the  unnecessary  indus- 
tries of  Paris — on  dressmaking? 

The  answer  came  almost  at  the  same  instant 
as  the  question.  A  scheme  evolved  itself  in  my 
head.  I  would  get  up  the  subject,  and  would 
write  an  article  for  '  Blackwood '  on  "  The 

1  This  gloomy  expectation  was  not  realised  ;  the  trade  of  Paris 
recovered  as  quickly  as  that  of  tnc  nation  at  large. 


180  SOME  MEMORIES  OF  PARIS. 

Influence  of  the  Siege  of  Paris  on  the  Art  and 
Trade  of  Dressmaking  "  !  I  would  inaugurate 
the  study  of  the  psychology  of  women's  gowns 
in  their  relation  to  both  international  and  civil 
war !  What  an  utterly  new  idea  ! 

That  was  the  result  to  be  attained.  The 
means  I  devised  for  achieving  it  were  fully 
worthy  of  so  grand  an  end.  I  would  go  next 
day  to  Mr  Worth  himself  for  the  requisite  in- 
formation ! 

The  fact  that  I  was  a  total  stranger  to  Mr 
Worth  did  not  seem  to  me  a  difficulty  :  I  felt 
scarcely  any  hesitation  at  the  idea  of  thrusting 
myself  upon  him.  I  had  been  told,  it  is  true, 
that  he  was  as  busy  as  a  Cabinet  Minister;  that 
it  was  more  difficult  to  obtain  an  audience  from 
him  than  from  a  reigning  sovereign ;  that  he  was 
a  loftier  personage,  by  far,  than  any  living  poet. 
But  there  were  considerations  of  another  nature 
which  encouraged  me  to  hope  that  I  should  van- 
quish all  these  obstacles,  that  I  should  succeed, 
in  spite  of  them,  in  obtaining  admission  to  his 
presence,  and  that,  once  there,  he  would  conde- 
scend to  answer  my  audacious  questions. 

Those  considerations  were  that  if  ever  there 
was  a  real  public  man,  a  veritable  figurehead  of 
his  day,  a  man  who,  all  by  himself,  represented 


MR  WORTH.  l8l 

a  great  contemporaneous  fact,  it  was  precisely 
Mr  Worth.  In  his  sole  person  he  was  the  com- 
plete realisation,  not  only  of  the  artistic  theory 
and  the  commercial  practice  of  women's  dress, 
but  also  (I  supposed  at  least)  of  its  abstract  es- 
sence and  hidden  meanings ;  he  incarnated  the 
matter,  the  morality,  and  the  philosophy  of  the 
problem.  He  was  all  this  so  completely  that 
the  perfection  of  his  success  had  enabled  him  to 
win  the  infinitely  rare  distinction  of  bestowing 
his  name  on  his  period  :  just  as  history  talks  of 
"the  age  of  Pericles,"  of  "the  Augustan  era," 
of  "  the  times  of  the  Medici,"  and  of  "  le  siecle 
de  Louis  Quatorze,"  so  also  had  I  often  heard 
the  Second  Empire  described  as  "  1'epoque  de 
Worth."  In  such  a  position  he  surely  owed 
himself  to  the  world,  especially  to  humble  in- 
quirers like  myself  who  sought  simply  to  sit  at 
his  feet  and  listen  to  his  words  of  wisdom.  The 
more  I  reflected  on  these  elements  of  the  situa- 
tion, the  more  did  I  incline  to  the  impression 
that,  indiscreet  as  I  might  be  in  troubling  him, 
he  would  scarcely  say  no,  and  that  he  would  not 
shield  himself  remorselessly  behind  what  was 
then  called  in  the  French  Chamber  "the  wall 
of  private  life."  His  personality  was  too  great, 
too  dominating,  too  full  of  public  responsibilities, 


l82  SOME    MEMORIES   OF   PARIS. 

to  permit  him  to  refuse  to  enlighten  his  genera- 
tion on  such  a  virgin  question  as  the  connection 
between  frocks  and  battles. 

To  inspire  myself  with  still  more  courage,  I 
quoted  aloud  the  words  of  the  Persian  poem, 
"The  moon  looks  on  many  night-flowers;  but 
the  night-flowers  see  only  one  moon."  Mr 
Worth  was  the  moon  ;  I  was  one  of  the  night- 
flowers  ;  surely  the  moon  would  not  decline  to 
shine  on  me  if  I  appealed  to  it  for  a  ray. 

In  the  morning  I  prepared  a  list  of  interroga- 
tories. At  five  o'clock  I  walked  into  the  first 
floor  of  No.  5  Rue  de  la  Paix. 

Mr  Worth  was  in.  I  sent  my  card  to  him. 
Within  five  minutes  he  was  standing  before 
me ! 

I  said  to  him,  "  Forgive  me  for  disturbing 
you.  I  know  how  occupied  you  are,  and  yet  I 
have  come  to  ask  for  an  hour  of  your  time.  I 
want  to  write  an  article  on  the  influence  of  the 
war  on  the  dressmaking  trade  of  Paris.  Such 
an  article  would,  I  am  sure,  be  read  with  inter- 
est, in  the  present  condition  of  public  feeling. 
You  typify,  for  everybody,  the  entire  idea  of 
Paris  dressmaking.  I  want  to  ask  you  ques- 
tions. Will  you  kindly  listen  to  them  ?  Will 
you,  still  more  kindly,  answer  them  ? " 


MR  WORTH.  183 

He  stared  curiously  ^perhaps  rather  suspici- 
ously) at  me,  hesitated  for  a  few  seconds,  and 
then  said  rapidly — 

"  Yes.  I  shall  be  very  pleased  to  have  a  chat 
with  you,  and  to  tell  you  what  I  can.  I  never 
was  asked  about  such  things  as  that.  But  we 
can't  talk  here.  At  this  instant  seventeen  per- 
sons are  waiting  for  me  in  nine  rooms.  Come 
to  dine  with  me  to-morrow  at  my  country  house. 
Take  the  6.30  train  from  St  Lazare  to  Suresnes. 
My  son  will  meet  you  at  the  station  and  will 
show  you  the  way.  A  demain.  Glad  to  make 
your  acquaintance.  Of  course  you  won't  dress." 

I  went  away  delighted.  The  great  man  had 
not  repelled  my  venturesome  demand ;  on  the 
contrary  he  had  admitted  it,  not  only  benig- 
nantly,  but  with  a  cordiality  which  rilled  me  with 
hopes. 

Next  day,  at  seven,  I  got  out  of  the  train  at 
Suresnes.  On  the  platform  I  found  waiting  for 
me  a  very  good-looking,  charmingly-mannered 
young  man,  who  introduced  himself  as  Mr 
Worth  fils  (he  is  now  the  head  of  the  firm,  I 
believe),  and  in  his  agreeable  company  1  walked 
to  the  great  red  brick  chateau.  He  told  me 
that  his  father  had  not  arrived  from  Paris,  but 
that  he  would  be  down  directly.  This  was  so 


184  SOME    MEMORIES   OF    PARIS. 

true  that,  before  I  had  passed  a  minute  on  the 
terrace  gazing  at  the  view  over  the  Bois  towards 
Paris,  I  heard  the  gallop  of  a  horse  tearing  up 
the  hill,  and  Mr  Worth,  spattered  with  mud  and 
foam,  rode  in  at  the  gate.  He  had  come  down, 
he  said,  in  a  quarter  of  an  hour. 

We  stood  chatting  for  a  couple  of  minutes, 
and  then  he  turned  to  the  house  to  change  his 
clothes. 

At  the  same  instant  I  saw  appear  on  the  ver- 
andah a  lady  in  white.  Her  elegance,  her  grace, 
her  winningness  were  such  that  I  stood  still  in 
admiration. 

"  My  wife,"  observed  Mr  Worth.  "  Let  me 
introduce  you  to  her." 

Now,  I  had  heard  from  public  rumour  that  Mr 
Worth,  when  he  was  cutter  at  Gagelin's  shop  in 
the  Rue  de  Richelieu,  had  married  one  of  the 
young  persons  employed  there.  I  had  heard 
additionally,  from  the  same  source  of  informa- 
tion, that  Madame  Worth,  with  the  adaptability 
of  many  of  her  race,  had  fitted  herself  admirably 
to  her  new  situation,  and  had  become  in  every- 
thing a  lady.  But,  though  I  had  seen  many 
transformations  of  that  nature,  no  previous  ex- 
perience had  prepared  me  for  what  I  beheld  at 
that  moment.  With  the  ease  of  an  accom- 


MR   WORTH.  185 

plished  woman  of  the  world,  with  combined 
dignity  and  simplicity,  with  infinite  gentleness 
of  movement,  she  made  two  steps  towards  me, 
smiling  graciously,  bowing  slightly,  welcome  on 
her  face.  She  wore  a  high  but  short-sleeved 
white  satin  dress,  striped  with  bands  of  black 
velvet ;  a  profusion  of  lace  hung  over  her ;  long 
Suede  gloves  reached  almost  to  her  shoulders; 
two  or  three  bracelets  were  on  her  arms  ;  a  dia- 
mond was  half  hidden  here  and  there  in  the  lace. 
Never  did  white  satin  appear  to  me  to  be  so  com- 
pletely absorbed  into  the  person  of  its  wearer ; 
she  and  her  gown  were  so  absolutely  one  that,  for 
months  afterwards,  Madame  Worth  and  white 
satin  presented  themselves  to  my  thoughts  as 
synonymous,  simultaneous,  identical,  unsever- 
able.  I  could  neither  disjoin  them,  nor  conceive 
one  without  the  other.  All  other  women  in 
white  satin  appeared  to  me  impostors.  It  never 
occurred  to  me,  as  I  looked  at  her,  that  such  a 
gown  was  at  all  out  of  place,  where  no  one  else 
was  dressed.  She  was  Madame  Worth :  her 
name  purported  dress ;  who  on  earth  should 
wear  white  satin,  even  at  six  o'clock  in  the 
morning,  if  she  did  not  ?  Her  right  to  the  ex- 
tremest  elegancies  of  raiment,  to  the  most  ex- 
cessive daintinesses  of  finish,  was  more  com- 


l86  SOME    MEMORIES   OF   PARIS. 

plete  than  that  of  any  other  woman  whatever. 
Besides,  she  was  so  sympathetically  attractive 
and  had  so  grand  an  air  that  the  dress  was,  after 
all,  merely  one  of  the  details  of  her  presence. 
With  all  this  I  noticed  instantly  that  she,  a 
Frenchwoman,  had  a  charm  that  was  distinctly 
Spanish,  far  more  Spanish  than  Slav  (the  only 
two  purely  national  types  of  charm) ;  so  Spanish, 
indeed,  was  it — of  the  fair  variety — that  if  I  had 
seen  her  in  the  drawing-room  of  a  great  house, 
and  had  been  told  she  was  the  Marquesa  de  la 
Vega  de  Granada,  daughter  of  the  Conde  Duque 
de  Valladolid  y  de  Burgos,  I  should  have  thought 
the  statement  perfectly  natural. 

As  her  husband  went  into  the  house,  she 
turned  to  stroll  with  me  on  the  terrace,  saying, 
in  a  soft  voice,  "  I  hear  you  want  Mr  Worth  to 
give  you  information  about  the  effect  of  the 
siege  upon  our  business.  He  will  be  very 
pleased  to  do  so,  and  I  hope  you  will  let  me 
read  what  you  write  about  it." 

I  triumphed !  I  was  making  the  acquaint- 
ance of  this  most  delightful  woman;  I  was 
acquiring  a  totally  new  perception  of  the  pos- 
sibilities and  the  meanings  of  white  satin ;  and 
I  was  about  to  be  instructed,  by  the  greatest 
master  in  the  world,  in  the  mysteries  of  the 


MR   WORTH.  187 

psychological  relationship  between  gowns  and 
politics,  fashions  and  sieges,  women's  vanities 
and  wars  !  What  a  success  my  projected  article 
would  have  !  Who  ever  had  such  good  fortune  ! 

The  conversation,  however,  was  not  active. 
The  delightful  woman  was  a  little  silent :  I 
perceived,  during  the  evening,  that  it  seemed 
to  be  her  practice  to  leave  talking  to  her  hus- 
band. But  what  a  delicate  picture  of  a  delicate 
woman !  I  remembered  Napoleon's  exclama- 
tion, "  Nothing  on  earth  is  so  pretty  as  a 
woman  in  white  in  a  garden !  "  I  agreed  en- 
tirely with  Napoleon. 

Presently  Mr  Worth  came  out  again,  in  a 
rusty  brown  jacket  and  a  battered  straw  hat 
without  a  crown  ;  whereon  it  occurred  to  me 
that  Madame  Worth  was  dressed  for  both  of 
them  (and,  indeed,  for  all  of  us),  which  still 
further  explained  the  white  satin. 

We  dined  (Mr  Worth  keeping  on  the  crown- 
less  straw  hat  at  table)  in  a  vast  greenhouse 
which  seemed  to  cover  an  acre  of  surface, 
amidst  a  forest  of  palm  -  leaves,  tree  -  ferns, 
variegated  verdures,  and  fantastic  flowers. 
Some  quiet  persons,  who  did  not  speak,  and 
who,  I  gathered,  were  relations  from  the 
country,  joined  us  at  dinner.  There  was  a 


l88  SOME    MEMORIES    OF    PARIS. 

perplexing  mixture  of  patriarchal  simplicity 
and  of  the  assertiveness  of  modern  money,  of 
thoroughly  natural  unaffectedness  and  of  showy 
surroundings,  of  total  carelessness  in  some  things 
and  of  infinite  white  satin  in  others,  which  was 
so  new  to  me  that,  at  first,  I  felt  a  little  bewil- 
dered, and  wondered  whether  I  was  dining  with 
Haroun  al  Raschid  in  one  of  the  disguises  he  so 
often  wore. 

After  the  soup,  Mr  Worth  began,  "  Now  put 
your  queries.  I  am  ready." 

I  commenced  my  speech.  I  explained  that 
my  original  object  had  been  to  obtain  materials 
for  an  article  for  "  Maga "  on  the  effects  pro- 
duced by  the  war  on  Paris  dressmaking;  but 
that  he  and  his  wife  had  received  me  with  such 
kindness  that  I  felt  emboldened  to  extend  my 
questions,  and  that,  with  his  permission,  I 
would  ask  also  for  information  on  the  meta- 
physical aspects  of  dressmaking;  on  the  influ- 
ence of  dress  on  the  formation  of  women's 
character;  on  its  share  in  constituting  their 
natures  in  different  lands ;  on  the  motives,  im- 
pulses, temptations  provoked  by  it ;  on  the 
moral  effects  of  dress ;  concerning  which  most 
interesting  elements  of  the  subject,  he,  of  all 
men,  was  most  capable  to  instruct  me. 


MR   WORTH.  l8g 

"  Hum,"  said  Mr  Worth,  when  I  had  finished. 
"  I  don't  quite  follow  you  in  all  that.  I  never 
thought  of  it  in  that  way.  The  war  has  done 
me  harm,  of  course,  as  it  has  done  harm  to 
everybody.  I  have  lost  a  year  by  it;  but  I 
daresay  I  shall  pick  up  again,  for  orders  are 
coming  in  very  fast.  But  as  to  all  those  other 
things  you  mention,  I  shall  have  to  think  a  bit. 
Influence  of  dress  on  women's  character  ?  Why 
what,  exactly,  do  you  mean?" 

"To  put  the  matter,  to  begin  with,  in  a 
narrower  form,  With  what  object  do  women 
dress?" 

"What  a  question!"  laughed  Mr  Worth. 
"  Do  you  mean  to  say  you  don't  know  ?  Why, 
women  dress,  of  course,  for  two  reasons :  for 
the  pleasure  of  making  themselves  smart,  and 
for  the  still  greater  joy  of  snuffing  out  the 
others." 

"  And  never  for  their  own  persons  only  ? 
Never  to  frame  in  and  set  up  their  individuality 
by  clothing  it  in  what  befits  it  best  ?  Never 
to  harmonise  their  essence  with  their  substance, 
their  self  with  their  surroundings  ?" 

"  I  must  say  again  that  I  don't  quite  follow 
you.  If  you  mean  whether  they  dress  to  suit 
their  bodies,,  according  to  their  own  ideas  of 


SOME    MEMORIES    OF    PARIS. 

suitability,  I  should  say  no  at  once ;  because, 
you  see,  the  women  who  come  to  me  want  to 
ask  for  my  ideas,  not  to  follow  out  their  own. 
They  deliver  themselves  to  me  in  confidence, 
and  I  decide  for  them ;  that  makes  them  happy. 
If  I  tell  them  they  are  suited,  they  need  no 
further  evidence.  My  signature  to  their  gown 
suffices !" 

"  Do  you  never  find  a  rebel  amongst  them  ? 
Does  no  one  ever  claim  the  right  of  personal 
invention  and  choice  ?  " 

"  Choice  ?  Yes,  certainly ;  but  only  between 
my  various  suggestions.  And  very  few  do  even 
that ;  most  of  them  leave  it  all  to  me.  But  as 
for  invention,  no.  My  business  is  not  only  to 
execute  but  especially  to  invent.  My  invention 
is  the  secret  of  my  success.  I  don't  want  people 
to  invent  for  themselves;  if  they  did,  I  should 
lose  half  my  trade." 

Madame  Worth  looked  affectionately  at  her 
husband  (they  seemed  to  be  a  most  attached 
couple) ;  then  turned  to  me,  raised  her  finger 
to  her  forehead,  and  said,  "  It  is  here,  you  know; 
here  lies  the  secret  of  his  success  ! " 

I  went  on  all  the  same,  "  What  a  pity  it  is 
you  will  not  enlighten  me  as  to  the  influence  of 
dress  on  character !" 


MR  WORTH.  IQ1 

"I  tell  you  I  don't  see  it,"  answered  Mr 
Worth.  "  Perhaps  I'm  too  busy  to  have  time 
to  make  observations  of  that  sort.  I've  a  deal 
to  do,  you  know :  I've  twelve  hundred  people 
in  my  employment,  who  need  some  looking 
after;  and  I  can't  stop  on  the  roadside  to  pick 
flowers.  I  thought  it  was  about  the  war  that 
you  wanted  to  know  ?  " 

"  So  I  do.  But  the  truth  is,  the  subject  grows 
upon  me.  As  I  talk  to  you,  I  see  more  and 
more  in  it.  If  I  were  not  afraid  of  being  in- 
discreet, I  should  put  a  hundred  questions  to 
you  about  its  endless  developments.  The  whole 
thing  grows  bigger  to  me  as  I  sit  opposite  you 
and  imagine  all  that  you  must  know  about  it." 

"  Oh,  of  course,  I  do  know  a  good  deal,  but 
it's  all  personal.  There's  the  subject  of  pay- 
ments, for  instance, — a  very  big  subject  indeed, 
from  my  point  of  view.  Then  there  are  the 
jealousies,  and  the  envies,  and  the  hatings,  and 
the  love-makings.  Oh,  I  know  a  quantity  about 
all  that.  Is  that  what  you  mean  ?  " 

"  No,  no ;  not  that  at  all.  That  is,  as  you 
say,  personal.  That  would  not  interest  English 
readers.  What  I  am  looking  for  is  general:  I 
want  to  discover  what  are  the  great  principles 
which  govern  the  action  of  dress  in  the  con- 


IQ2  SOME    MEMORIES   OF   PARIS. 

stitution  of  feminine  temperaments  and  the 
guidance  of  feminine  conduct." 

"  I  suspect  I  know  more  about  all  that  than 
my  husband  does,"  put  in  Madame  Worth, 
laughing. 

"Ah,  but  it  is  I,  not  you,  who  am  being 
examined,"  retorted  Mr  Worth,  laughing  still 
more;  "and  I  mean  to  keep  the  answering  to 
myself."  Then  turning  to  me,  he  went  on. 
"  Now,  suppose  I  tell  it  all  to  you  in  a  personal 
form,  then  you  could  stitch  it  together  in  a 
general  form,  and  so  make  a  gown  of  it  your- 
self— I  mean  an  article." 

"  Really,  I'm  afraid  I  couldn't  manage  that," 
was  my  reply.  "  I  shouldn't  feel  justified  in 
building  arguments  on  individual  facts,  each 
one  of  which  might  be  exceptional.  If  I  am 
to  set  forth  the  effects  of  this  war  on  one  of 
the  most  important  branches  of  the  trade  of 
Paris,  and,  more  particularly,  if  I  am  to  try 
to  analyse  the  interaction  of  dress  and  char- 
acter in  women,  I  must  have  your  direct  pilot- 
age on  every  point  and  your  authority  to  quote 
your  opinion.  My  own  fancies  would  be  ab- 
solutely valueless  without  your  aid ;  at  the  best 
they  would  be  nothing  more  than  the  pins  with 
which  you  fasten  stuffs  together." 


MR  WORTH.  193 

"  But  I'm  ready  to  tell  you  everything — that 
I  know.  Only  I  suspect  I  don't  know.  Those 
'  developments '  you  alluded  to  just  now  are 
rather  outside  my  day's  work.  And  yet  I 
should  really  like  to  tell  you  if  I  could.  Let 
me  try  what  some  of  my  stories  will  do  for 
you.  When  you  have  heard  them  you  can 
decide  whether  they  are  of  any  use." 

Whereon  for  half  an  hour  he  narrated  tales 
which,  assuredly,  were  excessively  amusing,  but 
were  of  no  sort  of  use  for  the  purposes  I  had 
in  view. 

At  last  I  ventured  to  put  in  an  interruption 
and  to  ask,  "  Now,  out  of  all  that,  what  is  your 
impression  (to  take  one  single  point)  as  to  the 
average  amount  which  women  spend  on  dress?" 

"  There  is  no  average  at  all.  How  could 
there  be  ?  In  every  case  the  expenditure  is 
individual,  and  is  governed  by  circumstances. 
There  are  quantities  of  very  respectable  women 
in  Paris  who  don't  spend  more  than  £60  a-year 
on  their  toilet,  and  who,  for  that  sort  of  type, 
really  don't  look  bad.  But  you  mean,  of  course, 
the  women  who  come  to  me,  who  are  of  a 
different  class.  Well,  they  get  through  anything 
you  like,  from  a  minimum  of  £400  to  a  maximum 
of  £4000.  I  know  several  women  who  reach 
N 


194  SOME    MEMORIES   OF    PARIS. 

somewhere  about  £4000  ;  not  every  year  the  same 
sum — sometimes  more,  sometimes  less.  Why, 
some  of  them — especially  Russians — need  £"150 
a-year  for  shoes  alone,  without  counting  boots." 

"Are  the  Russians  more  extravagant,  then, 
than  all  the  others?" 

"  It  doesn't  run  in  nations,  exactly.  Often 
it's  a  Russian,  as  I  say,  or  it's  an  American. 
Sometimes  it's  a  Peruvian  or  a  Chilian ;  some- 
times, even,  it's  a  Frenchwoman,  though  the 
French  are  usually  rather  careful;  economy  is 
in  the  blood,  you  know.  Here  and  there  a 
Spaniard  or  a  Southern  Italian  may  turn  pro- 
digal, or  people  of  some  of  the  outlying  races. 
But  rarely  does  an  Englishwoman  get  really 
wasteful,  and  I  have  not  known  a  single  case 
of  a  German  reaching  any  such  amount  as  I 
am  talking  of.  Some  of  the  Americans  are 
great  spenders ;  all  of  them  (all  of  them 
that  I  see,  I  mean)  love  dress,  even  if  they 
are  not  extravagant  over  it.  And  I  like  to 
dress  them,  for,  as  I  say  occasionally,  'they 
have  faith,  figures,  and  francs,' — faith  to  be- 
lieve in  me,  figures  that  I  can  put  into  shape, 
francs  to  pay  my  bills.  Yes,  I  like  to  dress 
Americans." 

I  was  beginning  to  despair  somewhat,  but  I 


MR  WORTH.  195 

went  on,  persistingly,  "  You  said  just  now  that 
orders  are  coming  in  very  fast.  Am  I  to  infer 
that,  according  to  your  present  impression, 
your  branch  of  the  commerce  of  Paris  will 
rally  rapidly  from  the  blow  the  war  gave 
it?" 

"  Oh,  certainly.  I  haven't  a  doubt  about  it. 
Women  can't  do  without  new  clothes :  they 
may  deprive  themselves  of  all  sorts  of  other 
things,  but  they  won't  shut  off  that  one.  They 
can't.  I'm  quite  sure  that,  by  the  end  of  the 
year,  we  shall  be  going  on  as  if  nothing  had 
happened.  Payments  will  be,  for  a  time,  more 
difficult  to  get  in — French  payments,  I  mean ; 
foreign  payments  are  not  affected  by  the  war — 
but  trade  itself  will  become  as  active  as  ever." 

"  Two  nights  ago  I  heard  the  contrary  opin- 
ion expressed.  It  was  argued  that,  as  the 
main  object  of  the  work  of  Paris  is  to  supply 
the  unnecessary  and  the  frivolous,  that  work 
will  not  be  resumed  rapidly." 

"Who  were  the  silly  people  that  said  that? 
Why,  it  is  precisely  the  unnecessary  and  the 
frivolous  that  everybody  comes  to  buy  in  Paris. 
People  don't  travel  from  everywhere  to  the 
Boulevards  in  order  to  lay  in  stocks  of  timber, 
or  raw  sugar,  or  ships'  ballast." 


196  SOME    MEMORIES   OF    PARIS. 

"Ah,  my  dear  Mr  Worth,"  I  exclaimed,  with 
delight,  "  now  you're  coming  to  the  philosophy  of 
the  thing.  That  is  just  one  of  the  points  I  want 
you  to  comment  upon.  Go  on  ;  pray  go  on." 

"Philosophy?  it's  self-evident  reality.  There's 
no  philosophy  in  it — not  a  bit.  Do  you  ever  hear 
of  a  woman — or  a  man,  either — who  did  come 
here  for  anything  but  the  unnecessary  ?  " 

"  Perhaps  not.  But,  you  see,  that  is  exactly 
what  I  should  like  you  to  show  me  in  its  de- 
tailed application  to  dressmaking." 

"  I  will.  Here  are  some  of  my  experiences 
in  proof  of  it." 

And  he  went  on  for  another  half-hour  pouring 
out  a  second  series  of  diverting  stories,  all  bear- 
ing, certainly,  on  the  energetic  pursuit  of  the 
unnecessary  by  clients  of  his,  but  with  not  one 
word  in  them  that  I  could  utilise. 

The  cruel  impression  grew  in  me  that  my  pro- 
posed article  would  never  be  written,  from  the 
unexpected  impossibility  of  obtaining  the  neces- 
sary information.  Yet  I  struggled  on,  and  asked 
again — 

"But,  once  more,  about  the  effects  of  the 
war?  Do  I  gather  quite  correctly  that,  in 
your  opinion,  it  will  not  exercise  any  durably 
injurious  effect  on  the  dressmaking  trade  ? " 


MR   WORTH.  197 

"That  is  my  opinion,  certainly.  I  have 
already  said  so.  We  have  lost  a  year,  and 
that  can  never  be  recovered.  But,  from  the 
nature  of  things,  the  war  will  bring  about 
no  permanent  change  in  women's  wants.  The 
future  will  be  like  the  past,  excepting,  of  course, 
that  (unless  there  is  a  Restoration  of  some 
sort)  there  will  be,  from  the  disappearance  of 
a  Court,  less  brilliancy  in  Paris  itself,  and  less 
demand  here  for  extreme  elegance.  So  far  as 
I  am  concerned,  however,  I  expect  that  foreign 
orders  will  make  up  for  what  I  may  lose  here. 
That's  all." 

I  echoed  mournfully,  "That's  all!  Then  if 
we  can't  get  any  further  in  that  direction,  let 
me  look  again,  if  you  will  permit  me,  at  the 
metaphysical  aspects  of  the  subject.  When 
women  order  dresses,  are  they  enthusiastic  or 
indifferent  ?  Does  the  process  fill  them  with 
emotion,  as  if  it  were  a  highly  exciting  cere- 
mony ;  or  do  they  perform  it  as  if  they  didn't 
care  ?  " 

"  That  depends.  Beginners  are  almost  always 
stirred  up.  Clients  who  come  to  me  for  the 
first  time  show  generally  very  perceptible  flutter. 
But  habit  quiets  that ;  after  a  time  they  cease 
to  be  fussy,  and  take  things  quietly.  Your 


198  SOME    MEMORIES   OF    PARIS. 

question  means,  I  suppose — judging  from  what 
you  have  said  about  the  moral  effects  of  dress 
on  women — whether  the  ordering  of  new  gowns 
is  a  cause  of  deep  palpitation  to  them.  I 
answer  that  by  saying  that  they  pass  through 
two  stages :  at  first,  as  a  rule,  according  to 
my  experience,  they  are  distinctly  agitated ; 
afterwards  they  become  calm.  But  always, 
no  matter  at  what  age,  the  discussion  of 
the  composition  of  a  new  dress  fills  every  one 
of  them  with  joy.  I  will  give  you  some 
examples." 

Then  he  began  a  third  series  of  gossipy  tales, 
which  lasted  for  another  half-hour  (he  certainly 
had  a  great  liking  for  personal  stories,  and  a 
great  stock  of  them,  and  he  told  them  vividly). 
But,  as  before,  there  was  nothing  in  them  that 
could  be  made  instructive. 

It  became  evident  to  me  that  I  had  failed. 
My  expectations  were  not — and  were  not  des- 
tined to  be — realised.  I  had  met  most  pleas- 
ant persons;  I  had  listened  to  many  diverting 
experiences  of  a  strange  sort ;  I  had  had  a 
glimpse  into  the  inside  of  a  life  that  was  new 
to  me;  but  I  had  obtained  nothing  of  what  I 
came  to  seek.  I  was  very  disappointed.  I 
had  been  treated,  however,  with  such  kind- 


MR  WORTH. 

ness,  that  I  felt  it  would  be  ungrateful  to  allow 
my  disappointment  to  show  itself.  So  I  chatted 
on  as  if  I  were  delighted. 

"What  a  charming  house  this  is,  and  what 
a  collection  of  beautiful  things  you  have  in 
it ! "  I  exclaimed,  trying  a  new  direction  of 
thought. 

"  I'm  glad  you  like  it,"  answered  Mr  Worth. 
"  The  ladies  who  come  down  here  to  tea — 
clients,  you  know — are  all  good  enough  to  say 
it  pleases  them.  By  the  way,  would  you  like  to 
hear  some  stories  of  my  tea-parties?" 

"  Thanks  very  much,"  I  replied ;  "  I  am 
afraid  they  would  scarcely  fit  in  with  what  I 
want  to  do.  Besides,  the  hours  have  passed 
so  quickly  that  we  have  almost  reached  the 
moment  when  I  must  go  to  catch  my  train. 
I  thank  you  very  warmly  for  your  charming 
hospitality,  and  for  all  that  you  have  told  me, 
though  I  fear  that  I  shall  scarcely  be  able  to 
build  much  on  it." 

"  Well,  if  you  do  write  anything,  you  will  let 
me  see  it.  Of  course  you  will  not  repeat  any  of 
the  anecdotes  I  have  told  you ;  they  are  con- 
fidential, you  know." 

I  took  leave  of  them  all  with  renewed  thanks, 
with  the  sentiment  that  I  had  made  acquaint- 


200  SOME   MEMORIES   OF   PARIS. 

ance  with  excellent  people  and  that  I  had  passed 
a  very  interesting  evening,  and  with  a  strong 
addition  to  my  many  previous  reasons  for  know- 
ing that  the  best-planned  and  best-intentioned 
efforts  often  fail. 

I  thought  a  good  deal  about  it  all  in  the 
train ;  I  thought  a  good  deal  more  during  the 
days  that  followed ;  but  I  did  not  attempt  to 
write  the  article,  for  I  had  nothing  to  put 
into  it. 

Shortly  afterwards  I  went  away  for  some 
months.  I  never  met  any  of  the  Worths  again. 
But  I  have  always  remembered  them,  and  I 
remember  them  still,  with  hearty  sympathy  and 
with  sincere  gratitude  for  their  most  kind  re- 
ception of  me. 


CHAPTER   IX. 

GENERAL    BOULANGER. 

NOTORIETY  needs  usually  time  to  grow;  it  is 
only  in  rare  cases  that  it  sprouts  abruptly. 
Even  General  Boulanger,  who  acquired  a  pro- 
digious quantity  of  it,  did  not  rush  upon  the 
world  between  night  and  morning.  It  is  true 
that,  when  his  moment  came,  he  burst  out 
eruptively,  but  he  had  to  pass  previously 
through  a  period  of  preparation :  several 
months  elapsed,  after  he  was  first  heard  of 
in  Paris,  before  he  became  a  personage.  In 
1885  the  papers  began  to  mention  an  un- 
known general  called  Boulanger,  who  held  a 
command  at  Tunis,  and  who  had  made  him- 
self conspicuous  there  by  a  noisy  quarrel  with 
somebody.  No  notice  was  taken,  however, 
of  the  name,  until  it  was  announced,  addition- 
ally, that  this  same  general  had  so  ingratiated 


202  SOME    MEMORIES    OF    PARIS. 

himself  with  the  Radical  party  that  he  was  cer- 
tain to  be  taken  up  and  pushed  on  by  them. 
Even  then  most  people  continued  to  be  un- 
aware of  his  existence.  But  it  ceased  to  be 
possible  to  go  on  ignoring  it,  for  he  was  thrust 
forward  so  determinedly  by  the  Left — who  at 
that  time  imagined  they  had  found  in  him  a 
man  after  their  own  heart — that,  at  the  begin- 
ning of  1886,  M.  de  Freycinet,  chief  of  the 
Cabinet  of  the  day,  was  forced  to  appoint  him 
Minister  of  War. 

A  "  legend  "  began  instantly  to  form  ; 
rumours,  assertions,  fables  filled  the  air  with 
strange  rapidity ;  within  a  week  of  the  nomi- 
nation everybody  professed  to  know  everything 
about  the  new  -  comer ;  every  mouth  was 
crammed  with  news ;  the  town  buzzed  and 
blazed  with  fantastic  details.  Notoriety  deton- 
ated at  last  with  a  deafening  roar :  its  fuse 
had  been  burning  slowly  up  for  months,  but 
when  the  explosion  came  it  was  tremendous. 
People  stopped  each  other  in  the  street  to  add 
something  wonderful  to  the  heap  of  wild  tidings. 
To  quiet  French  natures  (of  which  there  are 
a  good  many)  the  situation  became  a  sudden 
nuisance;  to  the  foreign  looker-on  it  brought 
out,  vividly  and  amusingly,  the  gobe  -  mouche 


GENERAL   BOULANGEK.  203 

tendencies  of  the  large  minority.  This  ac- 
quaintance whispered  to  you,  with  profound 
conviction,  "We  have  got  a  man  at  last." 
That  one  murmured,  with  still  deeper  earnest- 
ness, "  I  tell  you — I  know  it  for  a  fact,  though 
I  cannot  mention  my  authority  —  that  he  is 
capable  of  everything,  will  do  everything,  and 
will  succeed  in  everything."  A  third,  with 
mystery,  intensity,  and  awfulness,  pointed  to 
the  sky  and  muttered,  "The  day  is  coming! 
Revenge  and  victory  ! "  Others,  again,  a  good 
many  others  —  but  they  were  all,  of  course, 
Conservatives  —  declared  that  this  untried 
general  was  simply  an  additional  danger;  that 
he  was  choked  with  ambition,  vanity,  and 
presumption ;  and  that  he  would  lead  his 
country  to  destruction.  So,  on  one  side,  it 
was  asserted  that  a  saviour  had  arisen  for 
France  (I  wonder  if  I  could  count  up  the 
various  "  saviours  "  I  have  heard  of  there) ;  and, 
on  the  other,  it  was  alleged,  with  equal  infal- 
libility, that  a  fresh  and  vast  peril  was  loom- 
ing in  the  sky.  And  these  two  absolutely 
opposite  affirmations  were  expressed  about  the 
same  man  by  a  quantity  of  people,  not  one  of 
whom  knew  anything  whatever  about  him,  ex- 
cepting what  they  read  in  the  papers  or  heard 


204  SOME    MEMORIES    OF    PARIS. 

from  each  other,  and  not  one  of  whom  had 
ever  seen  him. 

The  question  of  getting  a  sight  of  him,  of 
perceiving  him  in  his  real  person,  and  other- 
wise than  by  his  photograph  (which  was  in 
every  shop-window),  was  discussed  widely,  but 
uselessly.  Everybody,  in  each  of  the  two 
camps,  was  excitedly  curious  to  behold  him ; 
but  the  curiosity  remained  unsatisfied,  for  the 
general  hid  himself  behind  the  walls  of  his 
Ministry.  Excepting  at  the  Chamber,  where, 
occasionally,  he  made  red  -  hot  Republican 
speeches  which  were  cheered  delightedly  by 
the  Left,  he  was  not  to  be  discovered.  He 
was  said  to  be  working  so  overwhelmingly  at 
the  entire  reorganisation  of  the  army  and  the 
War  Office,  and  at  gigantic  projects  for  re- 
constituting France  and  Europe,  that  he  had 
neither  time  nor  patience  for  mere  worldly 
gatherings.  Even  in  the  Bois  in  the  morning 
he  was  not  amongst  the  riders. 

Naturally,  this  invisibility  stimulated  still 
further  the  gaping  eagerness  of  the  public, 
and  if  it  was  adopted  for  the  purpose  (as 
very  probably  it  was)  it  succeeded  admirably. 
The  "  legend "  that  had  leaped  up  round  the 
name  of  Boulanger  was  swollen  daily  by  re- 


GENERAL    BOULANGER.  205 

ports  (usually  in  the  minutest  detail)  of  what 
the  unperceivable  general  was  doing,  of  the 
universal  changes  he  was  effecting,  and  by 
vague  but  prodigious  hopes  aroused  by  the 
action  that  was  attributed  to  him.  A  French 
army  at  Berlin,  the  Koenigsplatz  column  of 
victory  transported  to  Paris  and  set  up  as  a 
trophy  in  front  of  the  Madeleine,  were  talked 
of  by  the  most  enthusiastic  as  possibilities 
of  an  early  future.  Imagination  rioted.  The 
supposed  artificer  of  all  these  dreams  was 
sought  everywhere  and  found  nowhere ;  but 
the  crowd  grew  more  and  more  convinced 
that  he  was  nurturing  astonishments  and 
hatching  history  in  his  laborious  seclusion. 
If,  by  accident  or  obligation,  he  did  go  any- 
where, it  was  solely  to  official  houses ;  for,  in 
consequence  of  the  rupture  between  society 
and  the  Republic,  functionaries  are  rarely  seen 
in  private  drawing  -  rooms.  Now,  as  official 
houses  mean  only  those  of  French  Ministers 
and  of  foreign  diplomatists,  it  was  in  the  latter 
alone  that  people  of  society  (who  never  set 
their  feet  in  the  former)  could  hope  to  satisfy 
their  inquisitiveness  about  the  new  man.  It 
was  amusing  to  hear  them  put  earnest  questions 
about  the  chance  of  meeting  him  at  this  em- 


206  SOME    MEMORIES    OF    PARIS. 

bassy  or  that  legation,  and  to  observe  what 
a  gathering  there  was  at  any  place  where  it 
was  imagined  he  might  appear.  This  excite- 
ment contributed  most  fertilisingly  to  the 
growth  of  the  earlier  constituents  of  his 
ephemeral  reputation. 

Like  the  people  round  me,  I  became  curious 
too.  It  was  indeed  scarcely  possible  to  remain 
indifferent  on  a  question  which,  in  some  shape 
or  degree,  was  agitating  everybody.  But  though 
I  went  about  expressly  to  look  for  the  new 
general,  I  never  happened  to  encounter  him 
indoors  until  he  had  been  for  more  than  three 
months  in  office.  I  had,  it  is  true,  perceived 
him  in  the  Chamber,  and  had  heard  him  speak 
there;  but  that  view  of  him  was  of  no  use, 
for  as  French  Ministers,  when  sitting  in  their 
places  in  Parliament,  turn  their  backs  to  the 
public,  and  as,  when  in  the  Tribune,  they  are 
acting  a  special  part,  I  could  not  base  any 
opinion  on  such  insufficient  evidence. 

At  last  I  received  an  invitation  to  meet  him 
at  dinner,  and  commenced  on  that  occasion 
the  slight  and  superficial  personal  acquaintance 
I  had  with  him.  When  he  was  announced, 
a  quiet  man  came  in  at  the  door,  with  eyes 
that,  at  a  distance,  looked  mild,  without  a 


GENERAL    BOULANGER.  207 

symptom  of  either  the  vaunting  arrogance 
which  I  had  heard  imputed  to  him  by  his 
enemies,  or  of  the  commanding  superiority 
which  was  attributed  to  him  by  his  friends. 
He  showed  no  vulgarity  and  no  forwardness, 
no  energy  and  no  signs  of  character.  His 
manner,  watched  from  five  yards  off,  seemed 
gentle  and  unpretending.  He  looked  so 
thoroughly  nobody  that,  if  I  had  not  known 
who  he  was,  I  should  have  turned  my  eyes 
away  from  him  with  indifference.  My  first 
impression,  at  a  distance,  was  that  there  was 
absolutely  nothing  in  him. 

Oddly  enough,  I  chanced  at  table  to  sit  next 
to  a  lady  who  belonged  to  a  family  of  soldiers, 
who  was  thoroughly  acquainted  with  the  history 
of  General  Boulanger,  and  who  told  me  more 
intimate  details  about  him  than  I  had  heard 
before.  After  describing  to  me  many  circum- 
stances of  his  career  and  conduct,  she  went  on 
to  say  that  he  was  known  in  the  army  as  a 
metteur  en  scene;  that  he  could  do  nothing  simply ; 
that  he  had  always  an  extraordinary  faculty 
of  getting  himself  remarked  and  of  compelling 
notice ;  that  he  succeeded  in  giving  an  appear- 
ance of  studied  effect  to  his  most  insignificant 
proceedings,  so  much  so  that  it  was  said  of  him 


2O8  SOME    MEMORIES    OF    PARIS. 

by  his  comrades,  "  Oh,  that  fellow  !  he  has  a 
way  of  his  own  for  doing  everything :  even  if  he 
gets  wounded  in  action,  he  manages  it  so  as  to 
attract  attention."  This  description  was  not 
only  much  more  analytical  and  psychological 
than  anything  I  had  heard  before,  but  it  seemed 
also  far  more  likely  to  be  exactly  true. 

In  the  evening  I  was  introduced  to  the  Gen- 
eral, had  some  talk  with  him,  and  examined  him 
attentively,  with  the  result  that  I  had  to  alter 
my  first  impression  about  him.  The  mouth, 
which  in  vainglorious  faces  is  the  most  tell-tale 
feature,  was  concealed  by  the  moustache  and 
beard ;  but  its  divulging  action  was  performed 
for  it  by  a  peculiar  and  singularly  self-conscious 
movement  of  the  muscles  of  the  upper  part  of 
the  cheeks,  which  corresponded,  necessarily,  to 
analogous  workings  of  the  invisible  lips.  The 
eyes,  which  had  seemed  to  me  so  placid — almost 
dreamy,  indeed — at  a  distant  view,  were  filled 
to  overflowing,  when  seen  close,  with  a  contented 
but  transcendent  conceit,  which  at  moments  be- 
came positively  glaring.  He  was  evidently  not 
at  his  ease;  the  shield  of  indifference  behind 
which  he  tried  to  shelter  himself  concealed 
nothing;  the  need  of  self-assertion  pushed  it 
aside  continually,  and  the  real  man  stood  visible. 


GENERAL    BOULANGER.  2OQ 

The  physiognomy,  the  ways,  the  movements, 
fitted  thoroughly  to  the  bad  side  of  his  reputa- 
tion, and  I  had  to  recognise  that  I  had  judged 
him  too  advantageously  on  his  arrival.  Seen  from 
far,  and  seen  from  near,  there  were  two  different 
persons  in  him.  The  eyes,  above  all,  at  that 
moment  of  his  career  when,  around  him,  all  was 
clamorous  popularity,  and  when,  before  him, 
all  was  hope,  were  astonishingly  suggestive  of 
aggressive  vanity  ;  and  yet,  notwithstanding  this, 
the  expression,  on  the  whole,  was  weak — indeed 
its  feebleness  was  as  clearly  indicated  as  its 
conceit.  It  is  true  that  the  two  usually  go 
together. 

Still,  though  I  regarded  him  after  dinner  far 
less  favourably  than  before,  I  could  not  help 
making  excuses  for  him.  He  had  jumped  with 
violent  abruptness,  unprepared  by  character 
or  by  previous  contact  with  the  political  or 
social  world,  to  the  highest  position  open  to 
a  French  soldier ;  he  had  become  master  of  the 
army,  and  a  figure  before  Europe ;  his  situation 
and  his  reputed  power  as  a  statesman  were 
boiling  higher  every  day;  the  destinies  of  his 
country  were  supposed  to  lie  in  his  hands,  and 
a  portion  of  the  nation  was  looking  up  to  him 
as  a  heaven-sent  leader  to  the  glorious  unknown, 
n 


210  SOME    MEMORIES   OF   PARIS. 

In  all  this  there  was  enough,  and  a  good  deal 
more  than  enough,  to  spur  on  a  vain  nature,  and 
to  turn  a  feeble  head.  He  had  been  taken  up 
as  a  tool  by  others,  and  had  committed  the  not 
unnatural  mistake  of  imagining  that  he  was 
capable  of  working  for  his  own  hand.  He  had 
extenuating  circumstances  in  his  favour,  supplied 
by  the  folly  of  many  of  his  own  countrymen, 
whose  adulation  he  was  impotent  to  resist.  The 
mixture  in  his  face  of  shallowness  and  self- 
sufficiency  explained  the  man.  From  that  first 
meeting  with  him  I  had  a  strong  suspicion  that 
his  ambition,  whatever  might  be  its  extent, 
would  be  neutralised  by  the  indecision  of  his 
character. 

After  that  dinner  I  met  him  from  time  to  time, 
and  had  occasional  short  talks  with  him.  He 
touched  on  many  subjects,  but  he  did  not  seem 
solidly  acquainted  with  any  of  them,  and  had 
no  brilliancy  of  conversation.  He  inspired  me, 
more  and  more,  with  the  conviction  that  his 
dominating  need  was  to  show  off,  without  any 
accompanying  consciousness  that  he  would  be 
found  out  if  he  went  beyond  his  depth.  I 
watched  him  with  amusement,  but  with  little 
real  interest,  and  saw,  in  almost  each  of  his 
words  and  acts,  unceasing  preoccupation  about 


GENERAL   BOULANGER.  211 

the  effect  he  was  producing.  He  was  almost 
always  surrounded,  at  the  evening  gatherings 
where  I  met  him,  by  a  circle  of  flatterers  and 
starers.  He  had  ample  opportunities  for  satis- 
fying his  longing  to  be  remarked;  and  I  used 
to  wonder  what  there  could  be  in  him  to  explain 
his  success.  The  more  he  struggled  to  conceal 
his  vanity  and  to  appear  indifferent,  the  more 
did  he  show  his  innate  self-assertion ;  at  least, 
that  was  the  impression  which  grew  stronger  in 
me  each  time  I  saw  him.  He  was  irritable,  too, 
and  especially  could  not  support  the  semblance 
of  a  contradiction  :  he  was  convinced,  apparently, 
that  it  was  everybody's  duty  to  agree  humbly 
with  so  great  a  personage  as  he  had  become. 
He  did  try,  I  think,  to  behave  with  a  certain 
bonhomie,  but  it  was  not  natural.  It  seemed 
that  a  voice  was  always  coming  out  of  him, 
proclaiming,  "I  am  the  future!"  And  yet, 
with  all  this,  he  was  at  moments  almost  sympa- 
thetic :  he  did  not  possess  charm,  but  he  could 
be  what  the  French  call  cdlin,  and  when  occa- 
sionally he  took  the  trouble  to  be  so,  he  became 
agreeable. 

He  was  not  liked  by  women,  many  of  whom 
professed  to  be  afraid  of  him  and  avoided  him  ; 
indeed,  at  that  period  of  his  career,  I  rarely  saw 


212  SOME    MEMORIES   OF   PARIS. 

him  talk  to  women, — it  was  only  later  that  a 
few  of  them  began  to  offer  him  attentions. 
His  main  object  then  appeared  to  be  to  influ- 
ence men,  and,  on  the  whole,  he  succeeded 
amazingly  in  doing  so. 

One  night  at  the  Elyse"e  (where,  at  the  open 
receptions,  almost  anybody  with  a  tail-coat  could 
go  in),  the  General  was,  as  usual,  in  the  middle 
of  a  gazing  group.  Suddenly  he  grew  tired  of 
being  stared  at  and  commentated,  turned  sharp 
round,  and  walked  rapidly  into  another  room. 
I  happened  to  come  up  just  at  the  moment,  and 
found  myself  for  an  instant  next  to  a  middle- 
aged  man,  who,  from  his  appearance,  was  pro- 
bably a  small  provincial  functionary  or  trader, 
brought  there  by  the  deputy  of  his  arrondisse- 
ment  to  see  the  show.  The  man  followed 
Boulanger  with  his  eyes,  as  he  vanished  in  the 
crowd,  and  said  aloud,  just  as  I  passed  by,  with 
the  aggrieved  air  of  a  sight-seer  robbed  of  his 
spectacle,  "Well,  a  fellow  who  runs  away  like 
that  won't  lead  others  when  the  time  comes." 
Those  words  came  back  to  me  afterwards  when 
the  General  had  not  only  failed  to  lead  others, 
but  had  run  away  again  himself. 

On  another  occasion,  elsewhere,  a  friend  to 
whom  I  was  talking  said  to  me,  as  we  looked 


GENERAL  BOULANGER.  213 

across  the  room  at  Boulanger,  "We  modern 
French  have  become  a  nation  of  idolaters.  It 
is  absurd  to  go  on  calling  us  Christians.  We 
are  always  eager  to  worship  a  new  god,  pro- 
vided he  shines,  and  only  so  long  as  he  shines. 
When  he  grows  dim  we  smash  him."  At  that 
instant  some  one  at  my  side  said  "Bon  soir" 
to  me.  I  turned  and  saw  M.  de  Lesseps.  For 
him,  too,  I  had  sad  reason  to  remember,  later 
on,  the  words,  "  When  our  god  grows  dim  we 
smash  him."  It  was  a  strange  coincidence  that 
he  should  have  appeared  that  night  just  as  they 
were  spoken. 

So  things  marched  on  until  the  I4th  July, 
the  great  day  of  Boulanger's  life,  so  far  as 
popular  admiration  and  exterior  manifestations 
were  concerned.  It  was  the  date  of  the  review 
of  the  army  of  Paris,  held  every  year  by  the 
Minister  of  War  of  the  moment,  on  the  race- 
course in  the  Bois  de  Boulogne.  And  it  was 
also  the  date  of  the  appearance  of  Boulanger's 
black  horse — the  horse  that  became,  for  the 
time,  a  party  symbol,  a  political  finger-post, 
a  feature  in  the  history  of  France.  He  was 
a  prodigiously  showy  horse,  as  gorgeous  as  he 
was  famous;  he  was  composed  principally  of 
a  brandishing  tail,  a  new-moon  neck,  a  look- 


214  SOME    MEMORIES   OF    PARIS. 

ing-glass  skin,  and  the  action  of  Demosthenes. 
He  seemed  to  possess  two  paces  only,  a  fretting 
walk  and  a  windmill  canter.  He  was  a  thorough 
specimen  of  what  the  Spaniards  call  "an  ar- 
rogant horse "  :  he  was  gaudy,  yet  solemn  ; 
strutting,  yet  stately;  flaunting,  yet  majestic; 
magniloquent,  yet  eloquent.  He  was  drilled 
with  the  most  admirable  skill ;  his  manners 
were  so  superlative  that,  with  all  his  firework 
display,  he  could  not  have  been  either  difficult 
to  handle  or  tiring  to  sit.  Never  was  a  horse 
so  emphatically  suited  to  his  rider :  the  two 
were  identical  in  their  ways ;  each  was  as 
gilded  as  the  other.  As  the  horse  bounded 
along  before  the  troops,  the  General  (who  had 
a  weak  grip)  rocked  on  him ;  at  every  stride 
he  swung  harmoniously  in  the  saddle,  and 
bent  right  and  left  alternately,  like  a  stage 
sovereign  bowing  to  his  assembled  people. 
The  entire  pageant  was  wonderfully  got  up 
for  its  purpose,  with  the  rarest  perfection  of 
both  preparation  and  execution.  The  man, 
the  horse,  the  ribbons  and  stars,  the  white 
feathers,  the  plunging  and  the  swinging,  were 
all  exactly  what  they  ought  to  have  been  to 
delight  and  fascinate  the  mob.  The  means 
were  so  triumphantly  appropriated  to  the  end, 


GENERAL  BOULANGER.  215 

that  two  hundred  thousand  spectators  screamed 
themselves  sore  with  rabid  enthusiasm.  They 
flamed  with  frantic  raving.  That  soldier  and 
that  horse  incarnated  so  livingly  the  popular 
idea  of  glory,  that  every  soul  in  the  long  lines 
of  crowd  grew  utterly  demented.  The  yelling 
became,  from  minute  to  minute,  more  and  more 
furiously  mad.  And  the  General,  feeling  that 
his  work  was  good,  rocked,  swung,  and  smiled, 
then  smiled,  swung,  and  rocked,  and  took  his 
place  for  the  march  past. 

Around  me,  in  the  tribune  where  I  sat,  the 
feeling  was  of  another  nature.  I  was  in  a 
group  of  widely  experienced  people,  who  were 
all  particularly  competent  to  form  and  express 
opinions  about  conduct,  to  judge  of  the  fitness 
of  means,  and  to  appreciate  the  value  of  results ; 
and  their  impressions  were,  almost  unani- 
mously, strongly  hostile  to  the  performance  we 
were  beholding.  Two  or  three  of  us  argued 
against  the  others,  that  we  had  before  us  a 
pretender,  who  was  appearing  for  the  first  time 
in  official  splendour  before  the  population  he 
desired  to  subjugate ;  that,  knowing  unmistak- 
ably how  to  strike  the  imagination  of  that 
population,  he  adopted  processes  consummately 
adapted  to  that  purpose;  that  being  intimately 


2l6  SOME    MEMORIES   OF   PARIS. 

aware  of  the  peculiar  appetites  of  the  fish  he 
wanted  to  catch,  he  threw  to  it  the  very  fly 
it  longed  to  swallow ;  and  that,  in  consequence 
of  all  this,  his  flashy  meretricious  acting,  though 
in  the  most  deplorable  taste  in  the  eyes  of  men 
and  women  of  the  world,  was  entirely  in  situa- 
tion towards  the  mass.  We  urged  that  we 
were  looking  at  a  play,  which  must  be  measured 
as  a  play,  and  that  we  were  outside  real  life, 
the  rules  of  which  had  no  application  to  the 
extravaganza  represented  before  us.  The  ex- 
hibition in  itself  was  of  course  mere  vulgar 
ostentation,  like  a  Court  procession  in  the 
theatre  of  a  fair ;  but  the  political  effect  which 
was  manifestly  produced  by  it  seemed  to  us  to 
constitute,  under  the  special  circumstances  of 
the  case,  some  excuse  for  the  tawdry  details 
of  the  display.  The  majority,  however,  would 
not  listen  to  us ;  the  mummery  was  too  offen- 
sive to  them, — they  could  see  in  it  nothing  but 
its  bedizened  swagger. 

When  the  last  regiment  had  gone  by,  another 
act  of  the  piece  commenced.  The  General 
turned  his  horse  round,  and,  alone,  came  plung- 
ing and  rocking  across  the  few  hundred  yards 
of  turf  which  stretched  between  him  and  the 
tribunes.  He  increased  his  speed  as  he  got 


GENERAL   BOULANGER.  217 

near,  dashed  through  the  opening  in  the  rails, 
and  pulled  up  sharp,  all  foam  and  feathers,  in 
front  of  M.  Grevy,  saluting  as  he  halted. 

This  beat  the  crowd,  and  broke  them ;  it  was 
more  than  they  could  stand.  Wildly  they 
rushed  in  from  everywhere,  disregarding  sen- 
tries and  policemen,  and  came  tearing  towards 
us,  waving  hats  and  handkerchiefs,  cheering, 
shrieking,  roaring,  as  if  Boulanger  were  the 
one  joy  of  their  lives.  Howling  thousands 
filled,  in  half  a  minute,  the  whole  space  in  front 
of  the  Presidential  tribune ;  in  the  midst  of 
them  the  General  rocked  softly,  and  did  his 
best  (though  very  unsuccessfully)  to  look  in- 
different. As  I  was  in  the  next  tribune,  and 
watched  him  with  a  glass,  I  was  able  to  follow 
all  the  movements  of  his  expression :  he  tried 
to  hide  his  delight,  but  it  was  too  much  for 
him,  and  became  distinctly  visible.  He  really 
might  be  pardoned  for  being  unable  to  conceal 
it,  for  the  moment  was  full  of  throbbing  triumph 
for  him.  People  round  me  called  him  hard 
names  —  "buffoon,"  "  circus  -  rider,"  "charla- 
tan," "impostor"  —  but,  though  the  epithets 
were  justified  superficially,  the  personal  side 
of  all  this  swaggering  almost  disappeared  for 
me,  as  I  have  already  said,  behind  the  wonder- 


2l8  SOME    MEMORIES   OF   PARIS. 

ful  management  of  its  public  effects.  It  was 
impossible  not  to  blame  the  man;  it  was 
equally  impossible,  according  to  my  view,  not 
to  recognise  that  the  pretender  was  doing 
well. 

The  scene  lasted  for  five  minutes,  and  then 
the  President  of  the  Republic — who  was  utterly 
obliterated,  and  looked  intensely  sulky  —  took 
his  place  gloomily  in  his  carriage.  The  General 
put  the  black  horse  at  its  side,  and,  under 
pretext  of  respectfully  escorting  M.  Grevy,  sup- 
plied the  people  with  an  opportunity  of  yelling, 
"  Vive  Boulanger ;  c'est  Boulanger  qu'il  nous 
faut !  "  from  Longchamp  to  the  Elysee.  Such 
frenzied  bravos,  such  outcries  of  enthusiasm, 
had  not  been  heard  in  Paris  since  the  army 
came  back  from  Italy  in  1859. 

As  the  procession  started,  some  one  near  me 
exclaimed  bitterly,  "  And  that  man  is  to  be  the 
master  of  France  ! " 

About  the  origin  of  the  black  horse  I  was 
told  five  different  stories — all,  I  presume,  equally 
false,  but  of  each  of  which  I  was  assured  by 
the  teller  that  it  alone  was  true.  The  first  was 
that  he  was  bought  out  of  a  circus  in  Roumania ; 
the  second,  that  a  Paris  dealer  discovered  him 
at  a  sale  in  Yorkshire ;  the  third,  that  he  was 


GENERAL   BOULANGER.  219 

the  charger  of  a  very  big  lieutenant  of  cuiras- 
siers, and  was  not  up  to  the  weight ;  the  fourth, 
that  he  was  a  cast-off  from  a  racing  stable ; 
the  fifth,  that  he  was  the  pick  of  the  riding- 
master's  horses  in  the  cavalry  school  at  Saumur. 
In  each  case  it  was  added  that  he  had  been 
brought  to  Paris  three  months  before,  had  been 
ridden  regularly  with  troops,  and  had  had  his 
paces  finished  in  one  of  the  regimental  maneges 
in  Paris,  where  Boulanger  had  mounted  him 
daily  for  the  preceding  fortnight,  to  get  accus- 
tomed to  him.  I  repeat  these  tales  to  show 
the  curiosity  that  was  felt  about  the  horse : 
he  was  regarded  for  a  time  as  a  national  insti- 
tution, and  a  portion  of  the  community  felt 
proud  of  him. 

A  few  days  after  the  review  I  quitted  Paris, 
and  did  not  see  the  General  again  until  the 
winter,  when  I  met  him  at  the  German  Em- 
bassy. I  thought  him  changed.  He  seemed 
grave;  responsibility  and  struggle  had  begun 
to  mark  him.  But,  all  the  same,  the  double 
look  of  weakness  and  conceit  was  in  his  eyes, 
as  evident  as  before.  When  I  caught  sight  of 
him  he  was  leaning  against  the  piano,  Count 
Miinster  towering  over  him  as  they  chatted  to- 
gether ;  a  thick  ring  of  gazers  was  around  them. 


22O  SOME    MEMORIES    OF    PARIS. 

The  General  put  on,  as  usual,  unconsciousness 
under  the  staring;  but  it  was  evident  that  he 
felt  it,  probably  because,  on  that  occasion,  the 
starers  were  of  a  class  to  which  he  was  not  quite 
accustomed :  many  of  them  were,  of  course,  of 
other  nationalities.  The  curiosity  about  him 
had  become  almost  more  ardent  than  at  first, 
in  consequence  of  the  still  growing  belief  that 
he  had  a  destiny  before  him  ;  but  amongst  those 
whose  business  it  was  to  watch  him  and  to  form 
a  reasoned  judgment  on  him,  an  increasing  min- 
ority was  convinced  that  he  was  a  bag  of  wind. 

Of  the  political  motives  and  processes  of 
General  Boulanger  I  say  nothing.  The  gossip 
of  Paris  was  full  of  them,  and,  like  others,  I 
heard  a  good  deal — true  or  false — about  them ; 
but  they,  like  the  circumstances  of  his  private 
life,  lie  outside  the  present  subject.  At  the 
time  it  was,  of  course,  impossible  to  separate 
the  man  from  his  political  intentions  and  acts, 
for  the  good  reason  that  he  became  what  he 
was  precisely  because  of  the  intentions  and 
acts  attributed  to  him.  They  enabled  him  to 
place  himself  obtrusively  in  front  of  every  one 
else  in  France,  and  yet  nobody  could  explain 
why  he  got  there,  otherwise  than  because  he 
thrust  himself  forward,  and  because,  for  the 


GENERAL    BOULANGER.  221 

moment,  nobody  pulled  him  back.  Never  did 
self-assertion  produce  more  abundant  or  more 
immediate  effects.  Each  time  I  looked  at  him, 
during  that  winter,  there  came  into  my  head 
the  two  famous  lines  in  the  '  Biglow  Papers ' : — 

"  I  do  believe  in  humbug  general-ly, 
Because  I  find  it  is  a  thing  that  has  a  solid  vally." 

In  his  case  humbug  had  indeed  a  "  solid  vally." 
Humbug  lifted  him  so  near  to  personal  power, 
that  if  he  had  had  the  pluck  to  snatch  at  it 
when  it  seemed  ripe  to  his  hand,  he  would,  in 
all  probability,  have  seized  it.  Whether  he 
would  have  held  it  is  a  different  matter. 

But  his  humbug,  enormous  as  it  was,  appeared 
to  me  to  be  unconscious  :  it  guided  him,  I  fancy, 
in  everything ;  yet,  according  to  my  impression 
of  him,  he  was  unaware  of  it.  Here  is  an 
example  to  explain  my  meaning.  Talking  one 
night  of  Napoleon,  he  said:  "A  great  mind, 
yes ;  a  great  man,  no.  A  soldier,  a  lawgiver, 
an  administrator,  in  the  very  highest  meanings 
of  the  terms ;  but  nullified  by  impetuosity  and 
vanity.  No  man  can  be  truly  great  unless  he 
knows  when  to  stop."  Thereon  he  glanced 
round,  as  if  he  expected  one  of  the  listeners 
to  answer,  "As  you  would,  General."  It  hap- 


222  SOME    MEMORIES   OF    PARIS. 

pened,  however,  that  everybody  remained  silent. 
So  he  went  on  :  "  Alexander  the  Great  stopped 
at  the  Hyphasis,  and  turned  his  back  on  India. 
It  was  for  that  act  of  prodigious  self-control 
that  posterity  confirmed  his  epithet  of  Great, 
which  it  has  not  accorded  to  Napoleon.  I  tell 
you,  gentlemen,  real  greatness  consists  in  self- 
restraint."  And  he  looked  round  again. 

If  he,  of  all  men,  could  express  such  opinions, 
it  was,  I  fully  believe,  because  he  honestly 
thought  that  they  applied  truthfully  to  himself. 
I  never  suspected  him  of  being  a  wilful  dissem- 
bler, for  I  never  saw  in  him  a  sign  of  intentional 
deception.  He  was  too  blindly  vain  to  be  able 
to  imagine  that  he  needed  to  employ  artifice. 
He  was  intensely  content  to  be  what  he  was; 
was  convinced  that  he  was  great ;  and  did  not 
conceive  that  he  had  to  prove  it.  That  is  what 
I  want  to  convey  in  saying  that  his  humbug  was 
unconscious.  Others  may  have  judged  him 
otherwise, — I  am  only  saying  what  I  thought 
myself. 

In  the  spring  of  1887  I  met  him,  for  the  last 
time,  at  a  gathering  at  the  Spanish  Embassy ; 
and  there  three  or  four  French  ladies  grouped 
themselves  round  him,  sat  with  him,  and  talked 
to  him  intimately.  The  rest  kept  off  and  dis- 


GENERAL   BOULANGER.  223 

approved ;  but  it  was  a  commencement,  and  the 
General  was  palpably  pleased  by  the  feminine 
attentions  of  which  he  was  beginning  to  be  the 
object.  Flattery  in  a  social  form  was  supposed 
to  be  new  to  him,  and  to  have,  for  that  reason, 
all  the  more  attraction  for  him.  If  only  he  had 
lasted  long  enough,  a  little  Court  would,  I  doubt 
not,  have  formed  itself  around  him,  in  hopes  of 
what  he  might  some  day  become. 

But  neither  the  flatterers  nor  the  flattered 
were  destined  to  continue  their  respective  parts, 
for,  in  May,  the  Cabinet  was  upset,  and  the 
General,  after  sixteen  months  of  office,  had  to 
give  up  the  Ministry  of  War.  From  that  mo- 
ment his  official  position  in  Paris  was  at  an  end, 
he  ceased  to  be  invited  anywhere,  and  I  had  no 
more  opportunities  of  meeting  him,  or  even  of 
looking  at  him,  excepting  at  the  Chamber  and 
in  the  street. 

In  July  1887  he  was  appointed  to  the  com- 
mand of  the  i3th  Corps,  at  Clermont.  The 
scene  at  the  Gare  de  Lyon,  on  the  night  of  his 
departure  for  his  post  (when,  very  possibly,  he 
might,  if  he  had  dared,  have  made  himself 
master  of  France) ;  his  indiscipline  and  dis- 
obedience ;  his  condemnation  to  thirty  days' 
arrest  in  his  quarters  ;  his  deprivation  of  his 


224  SOME    MEMORIES    OF    PARIS. 

command  in  1888 ;  his  career  as  a  Deputy ;  the 
fierce  opposition  commenced  against  him ;  his 
flight ;  his  exile ;  and  his  miserable  death, — all 
lie  beyond  my  bounds.  I  limit  myself  to  the 
little  I  personally  saw  of  him.  The  rest  is 
public  history. 

I  add  only  a  story  from  the  '  Figaro,'  about 
the  arrest,  as  an  example  of  the  manner  in 
which  everything  serves  to  make  a  mot  in  France. 
The  railway  trains  stop  at  Clermont  for  five 
minutes,  and  passengers  are  informed  of  the 
halt  by  the  usual  cry  of  "  Clermont,  Clermont ; 
cinq  minutes  d'arret !  "  The  '  Figaro '  pre- 
tended, while  the  General  was  in  confinement, 
that  the  guards  and  porters  were  so  affected 
by  his  misfortune  that,  in  their  emotion,  they 
shouted  instinctively  and  unconsciously,  "  Cler- 
mont, Clermont ;  trente  jours  d'arrets  !  " 

General  Boulanger  began  explosively,  and 
finished  shatteredly :  it  may  indeed  be  said 
of  him  that  he  was  "  hoist  with  his  own  petard." 
He  knew  how  to  dazzle  a  mob,  but  not  how  to 
win  power.  As  my  neighbour  at  the  dinner 
when  I  first  met  him  told  me,  he  was  essentially 
a  metteur  en  scene,  but  when  he  had  produced 
the  scene  his  faculties  were  exhausted.  He  was 
aspiring  and  personally  brave ;  but,  as  develop- 


GENERAL   BOULANGER.  225 

ments  of  his  vanity,  he  was  nervous,  bad- 
tempered,  mutinous,  seditious,  infirm  of  purpose, 
and  without  moral  daring.  He  commenced  so 
brilliantly  and  ended  so  deplorably  that,  out 
of  pity  for  his  fall,  much  may  be  forgiven  him. 
I  have  the  liveliest  recollection  of  his  faults 
(especially  of  those  which  I  saw  him  commit) ; 
but  I  cannot  help  regretting  his  fate. 


CHAPTER   X. 

THE    OPERA. 

THERE  are  subjects  which  seem,  by  their  in- 
herent nature,  to  be  necessarily  full  of  incidents ; 
from  which  everybody,  as  a  matter  of  course, 
expects  impressions ;  but  which  are  so  funda- 
mentally deceptive  that,  when  they  are  looked 
at  closely,  scarcely  anything  can  be  discovered 
in  them.  It  would  be  going  too  far  to  pretend 
that  their  water  turns  into  sand  and  their 
flowers  into  ashes,  but  it  is  certainly  true  of 
them  that  they  promise  in  theory  enormously 
more  than  they  fulfil  in  practice,  and  that 
they  dazzle  on  their  surface  and  deceive  in 
their  substance.  The  Opera  is  —  according  to 
my  experience  at  least  —  one  of  the  most  de- 
lusive of  this  class  of  subjects  :  it  holds  out 
all  sorts  of  tempting  expectations,  and  realises 
scarcely  any  of  them.  Though  my  recollections 


THE    OPERA.  227 

of  the  Paris  Opera  extend  over  nearly  half  a 
century,  they  form,  in  the  main,  only  a  con- 
fused heap,  with  splashes  of  colour  here  and 
there,  but  without  much  outline ;  it  is  with 
difficulty  that  I  can  detect  amongst  them  an 
occasional  clearly  marked  picture.  Until  I 
began  to  look  into  them  with  the  purpose  of 
describing  them,  I  always  took  it  for  granted 
that  they  contained  a  quantity  of  strange 
details  and  amusing  memories,  and  yet,  on 
careful  examination,  I  find  them  compara- 
tively empty  of  any  well  -  defined  sensations. 
Such  few  details  in  them  as  may  be  worth 
narrating  are  all  small.  The  retrospect  dis- 
appoints me.  The  reason  is,  evidently,  that, 
like  others,  I  have  gone  habitually  to  the 
Opera  as  a  mere  social  act,  just  as  I  should 
go  into  a  drawing-room,  and  have  sought  for 
my  diversion  there  in  the  boxes  rather  than 
in  the  performance.  To  the  people  who  con- 
stitute society  (or  who  think  they  do)  the 
Opera  has  always  meant,  and  still  means,  the 
house  rather  than  the  stage.  To  see  and  to 
discuss  acquaintances,  and  to  be  seen  and 
discussed  by  them,  and  (for  men)  to  go  gossip- 
ing from  box  to  box,  are  everywhere  the  main 
objects  with  which  "the  world"  goes  to  the 


228  SOME    MEMORIES    OF    PARIS. 

Opera.  In  southern  Europe,  indeed,  it  may 
be  said  that  they  are  the  sole  objects.  There 
are,  of  course,  a  quantity  of  people,  less 
regular  in  their  attendance,  whose  purpose 
is  simply  to  hear  the  music ;  but  they  are  not 
"  the  world."  They  do  not  talk,  as  others  do. 
In  Paris,  especially,  it  is  an  accepted  principle 
that  society  n'ecoute  que  le  ballet.  It  is  only 
when  the  curtain  rises  on  the  short  skirts 
that  tongues  grow  still  and  that  eyes  turn 
unanimously  to  the  stage.  There  are,  naturally, 
singers  to  whom  everybody  listens,  and  songs 
(even  if  heard  for  the  hundredth  time)  for  which 
all  conversations  are  interrupted ;  but  the  gen- 
eral rule  remains,  that  relative  silence  and  at- 
tention are  reserved,  in  Paris,  for  the  dancing. 
Of  a  spectacle  so  constituted  there  is  much  of 
personal  tittle  -  tattle  to  narrate,  but  there  is 
very  little  of  general  interest ;  and  that  is,  I 
apprehend,  the  reason  why  people  who  have  fre- 
quented the  Opera  during  nearly  all  their  lives 
find,  as  I  have  just  said,  so  little  to  tell  about  it. 
This  condition  of  the  question  is  reflected 
in  the  copious  literature  which  exists  about  the 
Paris  Opera,  for  it  does  not  give  a  quarter  of 
its  pages  to  the  music,  and  concerns  itself  prin- 
cipally with  the  ballet.  There  are  quantities 


THE    OPERA.  229 

of  volumes,  dating  from  various  years  of  the 
century,  filled  largely  with  biographies  and 
adventures  of  danseuses, — their  variegated  loves, 
their  vanities,  and  their  bitter  jealousies  of  each 
other  are  described  minutely;  but  there  are 
scarcely  any  ordinary  books  (I  exclude,  of 
course,  the  special  and  technical  ones)  which 
treat  mainly  of  the  music  performed,  and  not 
one,  so  far  as  I  know,  which  describes  the 
public  and  its  ways. 

And  yet  the  chronicles  of  the  boxes  are  pre- 
cisely what  society  cares  most  about,  because 
they  mean  the  history  of  a  not  inconsiderable 
portion  of  the  brighter  social  life  of  Paris.  As 
those  chronicles,  if  they  existed,  would  of  course 
be  purely  local,  foreign  readers  would  not  care 
for  them  ;  but  to  Paris  itself  they  would  signify 
"the  Opera,"  almost  to  the  exclusion  of  all  else. 
When  it  is  remembered  that  there  are  three 
subscribers'  nights  each  week ;  that  very  few  of 
the  abonnes  possess  a  box  for  more  than  one  of 
the  three  nights  (sometimes,  even,  for  only  one 
night  in  a  fortnight) ;  that  there  are  in  the  present 
house  about  eighty  boxes  open  to  subscription, 
on  the  ground  tier,  grand  tier,  and  second  tier 
(the  side-boxes  on  the  second  tier  are  left  for 
the  miscellaneous  public,  who  also  have  all  the 


23O  SOME    MEMORIES   OF    PARIS. 

boxes  at  their  disposal  on  the  off -nights),  it 
will  be  perceived  that  the  number  of  different 
subscribers  is  considerable,  and  that  the  intimate 
history  of  each  box  is  very  varied  and  altogether 
special  to  itself.  The  controllers  on  the  stair- 
case must  need  some  training  before  they  get 
to  know  the  face  of  every  one,  as  undoubtedly 
they  do.  No  subscriber's  box  is  ever  let ;  it  is 
lent  to  friends  when  not  used  by  its  owner :  in 
the  event  of  mourning  or  long  absence  it  may 
be  leased  away  for  an  entire  year ;  but  it  would 
be  against  the  usages  of  Paris  to  retail  it  for 
money  for  a  single  night.  The  difficulty  of  ob- 
taining an  abonnement  is  very  great,  for  a  box 
once  got  is  held  solidly  in  a  family.  When  the 
old  Marquis  de  Casa  Riera,  who  had  for  many 
years  the  great  Entre  Colonnes  box  on  the 
right  side  (for  which  he  paid,  if  I  remember 
rightly,  £1200  a-year,  and  which,  though  he 
was  blind,  he  filled  every  night  with  pretty 
women),  died  some  fifteen  years  ago,  there 
was  a  hot  flutter  of  excitement  in  the  Paris  of 
the  Opera  as  to  what  would  become  of  the 
succession  to  the  box.  After  a  palpitating 
struggle  of  influences,  efforts,  and  diplomacy, 
equal  in  emotion  to  the  contest  between  Ulysses 
and  the  Telamonian  Ajax  for  the  armour  of 


THE   OPERA.  231 

Achilles,  the  nephew  and  heir  of  the  old  Mar- 
quis managed  to  keep  the  box  for  one  night 
a- week  (he  could  not  obtain  more),  and  it  was 
won  for  each  of  the  other  nights  by  persons  of 
the  highest  place,  who  had  been  longing  for 
it  impatiently  for  years.  An  ordinary  box  for 
one  night  a -week  costs  from  £"240  to  £320 
a-year,  according  to  its  size  and  situation.  The 
combat  for  boxes  is  unceasing :  it  is  one  of  the 
features  of  the  rich  life  of  Paris,  and,  to  those 
who  know  the  people  and  the  circumstances, 
the  combat  is  diverting  to  watch.  Nothing, 
however,  need  be  told  about  it  here.  I  presume 
that  it  has  gone  on  from  the  beginning,  in  every 
one  of  the  thirteen  houses  in  which  the  Paris 
Opera  has  successively  been  lodged ;  but  it  is 
naturally  more  acute  at  present  than  it  ever  was 
before,  for  the  two  reasons  that  more  and  more 
people  are  able  to  pay  for  a  box,  and  that 
the  present  theatre  is  so  superb  that  it  acts 
temptingly  and  stimulatingly  on  the  ambitious. 
Amongst  its  other  glories  it  is  by  very  far  the 
biggest  that  exists;  for  instance,  it  is  about 
three  times  the  size  (in  surface  and  in  cube)  of 
the  Operas  of  Munich  and  St  Petersburg,  and 
about  ten  times  greater  than  that  at  Berlin. 
The  influence  of  the  Paris  Opera  on  the 


232  SOME    MEMORIES   OF    PARIS. 

history  and  development  of  operatic  representa- 
tions has  been  considerable ;  no  other  city  has 
contributed  in  the  same  degree  to  the  founda- 
tion and  the  progress  of  both  opera  and  ballet. 
In  Opera  Comique  particularly,  as  distinguished 
from  the  Italian  Opera  Buffa,  the  French  have 
taken  the  lead  from  the  commencement ;  it  is 
to  them,  almost  alone,  that  we  owe  the  growth 
of  this  branch  of  composition,  the  representation 
of  which,  however,  has  been  transferred  from 
the  Grand  Opera  to  smaller  houses.  Of  course 
the  first  operas  were,  as  the  name  shows,  Italian, 
and  the  earliest  of  them  are  said  to  belong  to  the 
end  of  the  fifteenth  century.  But  the  establish- 
ment of  what  is  now  understood  by  a  national 
Opera  was  a  purely  French  act,  and  dates  from 
1671,  when  "  Pomone,"  a  "  Comedie  fran^aise  en 
musique"  was  performed,  under  the  management 
of  the  Abbe  Perrier,  in  a  house  built  for  the 
purpose,  in  what  is  now  the  Rue  Mazarine. 
In  1672  Lulli  was  appointed  by  Louis  XIV., 
through  the  protection  of  Madame  de  Monte- 
span,  Director  of  the  Opera,  and  the  title  of 
"  Academic  royale  de  Musique  "  was  bestowed 
on  the  undertaking.  From  that  time  to  this 
there  has  been  a  French  Opera  in  Paris. 


THE    OPERA.  233 

But  though  the  French  Opera  has  always 
been  a  national  institution,  and  though  all  its 
productions  have  been  in  the  French  language 
(excepting  when,  once  or  twice,  an  Italian  troupe 
has  given  momentary  representations),  its  des- 
tinies have  been  largely  shaped  by  foreigners. 
From  Lulli  to  Gluck  and  Piccini,  and  from  them 
again  to  Rossini  and  Meyerbeer,  foreign  com- 
posers have  contributed  as  much  as  Frenchmen 
to  its  success.  Futhermore,  it  must  be  re- 
marked, as  a  characteristic  of  its  history,  that 
almost  every  one  of  the  early  pieces,  whether 
by  French  or  foreign  composers,  contained  a 
ballet  ;  indeed,  on  looking  over  the  long  list 
of  Tragedies  lyriques  and  Pastorales  represented 
during  the  first  hundred  years,  scarcely  any 
example  can  be  found  of  song  without  dance. 
And  the  dancing  was  an  important  portion  of 
the  whole  show,  not  a  mere  divertissement  as  in 
our  day.  This  feature  was  as  clearly  marked 
from  the  origin  as  was  the  cosmopolitan  com- 
position of  the  music.  In  the  first  letters- 
patent  which  Louis  XIV.  addressed  to  the 
management  of  the  Opera,  he  used  words  which 
painted  clearly  the  state  of  the  opinion  which 
then  existed  as  to  the  importance  of  dancing. 


234  SOME    MEMORIES   OF    PARIS. 

He  said  : — 

Bien  que  1'art  de  la  danse  ait  toujours  etc"  recormu 
1'un  des  plus  honnetes  et  des  plus  necessaires  a  former 
le  corps,  neanmoins  il  s'est,  pendant  les  desordres  et 
la  confusion  des  dernieres  guerres,  introduit  dans  le 
dit  art,  comme  en  tous  autres,  un  grand  nombre 
d'abus  capables  de  les  porter  a  leur  ruine  irreparable. 
.  .  .  Beaucoup  d'ignorants  ont  tache  de  le  defigurer 
et  de  le  corrompre  en  la  personne  de  la  plus  grande 
partie  des  gens  de  qualite.  .  .  .  Ce  qui  fait  que  nous 
en  voyons  peu,  dans  notre  cour  et  suite,  capables 
et  en  etat  d'entrer  dans  nos  ballets,  quelque  dessein 
que  nous  eussions  de  les  y  appeler.  A  quoi  etant 
necessaire  de  pourvoir,  et  desirant  retablir  le  dit  art 
dans  sa  perfection  et  1'augmenter  autant  que  faire  se 
pourra,  nous  avons  juge  a  propos  d'e"tablir  dans  notre 
bonne  ville  de  Paris  une  Academic  royale  de  danse, 
composee  de  treize  des  plus  experimentes  du  dit  art. 

So  that  the  Opera  dancing-school  was  regarded 
in  the  royal  mind  as  an  aid  for  the  development 
of  Court  dancing.  And  yet,  notwithstanding 
this  enthusiasm  for  "  le  dit  art"  it  was  not 
until  1681,  after  the  princesses  and  ladies  of 
the  Court  had  set  at  St  Germain  the  example 
of  dancing  and  declaiming  before  the  King 
in  the  ballet  "  Le  Triomphe  de  1'Amour,"  that 
women  dancers  ventured  to  show  themselves 
on  the  public  stage.  Until  then  the  female 


THE    OPERA.  235 

parts  in  the  ballets  had  been  performed  by  men. 
Emboldened,  and  indeed  authorised,  by  the 
initiative  from  above,  Mademoiselle  La  Fon- 
taine had  the  courage  to  appear  as  a  danseuse 
at  the  Opera ;  she  was  the  first  woman-dancer, 
the  originator  and  creator  of  the  profession ; 
and  as  she  had  the  good  fortune  to  commence 
her  career  just  at  the  right  moment,  she  had 
immense  success  and  made  her  name  immortal. 
Whereon,  it  may  be  observed  that  immortality 
amongst  mortals  is  obtainable  sometimes  from 
curious  sources. 

At  that  time  dancing  was  regarded  as  such 
a  noble  act  that  not  only  did  the  bearers  of 
the  royal  and  historic  names  of  France  perform 
before  the  sovereign,  and  not  only  did  the  King 
himself  take  part  sometimes  in  person,  but, 
additionally,  a  young  Prince  Dietrichstein,  the 
eldest  son  of  the  then  Grand  Master  of  the 
Imperial  Court  at  Vienna,  positively  danced  a 
pas  seul  in  public  on  the  stage  of  the  Paris  Opera 
on  igth  June  1682,  in  the  lyric  tragedy  of 
"  Persee."  The  '  Mercure  Galant '  (the  famous 
monthly  journal  of  the  time)  described  the  scene 
in  detail,  saying,  amongst  other  things,  "  Ce 
jeune  seigneur,  qui  n'a  pris  Ie9on  que  depuis  un 
an,  dansa  cette  entree  d'une  maniere  si  juste 


236  SOME    MEMORIES   OF   PARIS. 

qu'il  fut  admire  de  tout  le  monde."  Yet,  not- 
withstanding the  success  of  the  attempt,  a 
hundred  and  fifty  years  passed  before  persons 
of  society  appeared  again  as  dancers  on  the 
Opera  stage.  In  1833,  when  Auber's  opera  of 
"  Gustave  III."  was  produced,  the  ball  scene, 
with  its  splendours  and  its  mad  galop,  produced 
such  an  effect  on  the  audience  that,  as  a  con- 
temporary writer  puts  it — 

II  y  cut  entre  la  scene  et  la  salle  un  fluide  de  com- 
munication et  d'attraction  tellement  imperieux  que  la 
scene  se  peupla  au  prejudice  de  la  salle.  Des  dames 
—  de  grandes  dames  —  affublees  de  dominos  epais, 
le  visage  couvert  d'un  masque  impenetrable,  vinrent 
galoper  au  milieu  des  danseuses  et  des  figurantes 
du  corps  de  ballet.  Les  homines  suivirent  1'example 
des  femmes ;  ils  passerent  sur  le  theatre ;  et,  un  cer- 
tain jour  du  carnaval,  les  lions  des  avant-scenes  et  de 
1'orchestre,  deguises  en  ours  blancs  et  noirs,  conduisir- 
ent  le  galop  a  la  grande  joie  d'une  salle  comble. 

To  give  another  example,  of  a  different  sort, 
of  the  importance  acquired  formerly  by  the 
ballet,  I  mention  the  fact  that  when  the  first 
Vestris,  founder  of  the  dynasty  and  father  of 
"le  Dieu  de  la  danse"  declared,  with  profound 
conviction,  "  there  are  only  three  great  men 
in  the  world,  myself,  Voltaire,  and  the  King 


THE    OPERA.  237 

of  Prussia,"  nobody  seems  to  have  felt  surprise 
or  to  have  offered  contradiction. 

The  portraits  of  twenty  of  the  most  famous 
danseuses  are  to  be  seen  in  the  foyer  de  la  dame 
of  the  present  Opera  House,  where,  from  Made- 
moiselle La  Fontaine  down  to  Madame  Rosati, 
including  Salle,  Camargo,  Guimard,  Noblet, 
Taglioni,  Duvernay,  Elssler,  Carlotta  Grisi, 
and  Cerrito,  a  fairly  complete  gallery  of  faces 
and  costumes,  reproduced  from  old  pictures, 
is  on  the  walls.  It  is  a  curious  collection 
of  the  types  and  fashions  of  the  two  last 
centuries. 

The  foyer  de  la  danse  was  in  other  days  a  very 
famous  gathering-place.  Regular  subscribers 
and  distinguished  personages  alone  had  the 
right  to  enter  it,  and  for  a  long  while  the  right 
was  regarded  as  a  privilege.  But  since  the 
new  house  has  been  opened  the  privilege  has 
lost  much  of  its  ancient  value.  The  foyer  of 
the  former  building  in  the  Rue  Le  Pelletier  was 
old-fashioned,  badly  lighted,  with  faded  velvet 
benches,  and  with  damaged  frames  to  the  mir- 
rors ;  its  sole  ornament  was  a  marble  bust  of 
Guimard.  And  yet  all  Paris  and  all  Europe  (I 
need  scarcely  explain  that  I  am  speaking  of  men 
only)  flocked  to  it  as  a  place  of  delight.  It  was 


238  SOME    MEMORIES    OF    PARIS. 

full  of  traditions  and  associations ;  the  history 
of  recent  dance  was  represented  in  it ;  every 
danseuse  of  name  since  1821  (when  the  house 
was  built,  after  the  murder  of  the  Due  de  Berri 
in  the  preceding  establishment  in  the  Place 
Louvois)  had  received  in  it  the  homage  of 
her  admirers ;  with  all  its  shabbiness  it  shone, 
with  all  its  dinginess  it  glittered ;  it  offered 
to  its  habitues  what  they  considered  to  be  a 
delightful  pastime,  and  constituted  a  drawing- 
room  of  an  intensely  specialised  sort.  The 
foyer  of  the  new  house  is  a  vast  gorgeous  hall, 
all  marble  columns,  brilliant  lustres,  endless 
looking-glasses,  pictures,  and  bright  ornaments : 
it  is  as  magnificent  as  the  old  one  was  squalid  ; 
and  yet  it  lacks  the  meaning  and  the  attraction 
of  the  other,  and  is  comparatively  abandoned. 
The  fashion  has  changed ;  foreign  princes  have 
ceased  to  think  that  their  first  visit  to  Paris  has 
been  incomplete  if  they  have  not  seen  it,  and 
have  not  listened  to  the  oracles  of  the  priestesses 
of  the  shrine.  There  is  still  a  crowd  in  it  (as 
thick,  perhaps,  as  ever)  during  the  entr'actes  of 
the  ballet ;  but  the  composition  of  the  assem- 
blage is  altered :  it  is  no  longer  made  up  prin- 
cipally of  ambassadors,  ministers,  and  bearers  of 
great  names  ;  journalists  and  Bourse  speculators 


THE    OPERA.  239 

are  abundant  in  it  now.  The  young  ladies,  who 
have  acquired  from  long  practice  the  faculty  of 
standing  about  unconcernedly  and  imperviously 
in  draughts,  with  bare  legs,  arms,  and  shoulders, 
and  with  "  des  robes  qui  ne  commencent  qu'a 
peine  et  finissent  tout  de  suite "  (another 
definition  is,  "  des  robes  excessivement  hautes 
par  le  bas  et  excessivement  basses  par  le  haut "), 
do  not  charm  the  gentlemen  of  to-day  as  they 
fascinated  their  fathers.  The  foyer  lives  upon 
its  ancient  fame,  and  is  still  curious  to  look  at ; 
but  it  has  fallen  from  the  high  place  which  once 
belonged  to  it  in  the  life  of  Paris.  When  I  first 
saw  it,  the  gathering  was  in  its  full  glory. 
Almost  miserable  as  was  the  room,  with  its 
dirty  sloping  floor  (corresponding  with  the 
incline  of  the  stage),  its  low  ceiling,  and  its  air 
of  general  discomfort,  the  scenes  that  went  on 
in  it,  the  words  that  were  spoken  in  it,  and  the 
people  that  frequented  it,  were  absolutely  apart ; 
nothing  like  them  was  to  be  found  elsewhere. 
The  mixture  of  brilliancy,  of  elegance,  of  dance, 
of  sparkling  talk  (on  the  side  of  the  men),  of 
love-making  and  of  laughter,  was  prodigious. 
Neither  natural  nor  experimental  chemistry  has 
ever  produced  a  more  intimate  compound  of 
fantastic  elements :  it  was  social  and  moral 


24O  SOME    MEMORIES    OF    PARIS. 

synthesis  in  its  intensest  form.  At  that  time  the 
habitues  of  the  foyer  were  convinced  that  they 
could  not  live  without  it ;  it  had  become  nec- 
essary to  their  lives.  The  present  generation 
manages  to  subsist  away  from  it. 

Scarcely  any  of  the  stories  told  of  danseuses 
are  amusing;  few  of  the  heroines  have  left 
behind  them  any  reputation  of  esprit.  The  best 
known  of  the  legends  is  that  Mademoiselle 
Guimard  determined,  when  she  was  young,  that 
she  would  postpone  growing  old;  so  she  had 
her  portrait  taken  at  the  age  of  twenty,  placed 
the  picture  on  her  dressing  -  table  by  the  side 
of  her  glass,  and  painted  herself  up  to  it  every 
morning  until  she  was  fifty.  By  that  means 
she  remained  twenty  during  thirty  years.  It 
was  she  too,  who,  at  sixty,  consented  to  give 
a  final  representation  for  her  friends,  on  con- 
dition that  the  curtain  should  be  kept  down 
to  the  level  of  her  waist,  and  that  the  spectators 
should  see  nothing  of  her  but  her  legs,  which, 
although  her  body  was  so  thin  that  she  was 
called  "the  skeleton  of  grace,"  had  retained  in 
age  the  beauty  of  their  youthful  form. 

Of  all  the  others  there  is  not  a  story  to  be 
told,  not  one  at  least  that  is  worth  telling; 
the  quartz  contains  no  gold.  But  yet  there  is 


THE    OPERA.  241 

something  to  be  said  of  one  of  them.  There 
was  a  dancer  of  whom  it  is  impossible  not  to 
speak,  not  indeed  to  tell  stories  of  her,  for  I 
know  none,  but  to  give  her  the  first  place 
which  belongs  to  her  in  dance  history — Tag- 
lioni !  Nature  did  not,  most  certainly,  intend 
that  she  should  dance  (although  she  belonged 
to  a  family  of  dancers),  for,  as  a  child,  she  was 
a  most  wretched  object,  pale,  crooked,  wasted ; 
but  will  and  work  made  of  her  a  wonder.  Her 
debut  was  at  Vienna ;  her  success,  however,  was 
won  in  Paris,  and  Paris  claims  her  as  its  own. 
She  appeared  there  in  1827,  but  it  was  not  till 
1830  that,  in  "  Le  Dieu  et  la  Bayadere,"  she 
took  her  real  place.  In  1832  came  "  La  Syl- 
phide,"  a  still  greater  triumph,  in  which  even 
the  physical  defects  of  Taglioni,  especially  her 
phenomenal  thinness,  seemed  almost  to  add  to 
the  effect  she  produced  : — 

Elle  devenait  une  ombre ;  elle  se  condensait  en 
vapeur ;  elle  flottait  sur  le  lac  bleuatre  et  sous  1  e'cume 
de  la  cascade,  comme  un  flocon  de  brume  souleve  par 
le  vent !  Une  couronne  de  volubilis  ideal  s'enroulait 
dans  ses  cheveux,  et  derriere  ses  dpaules  freles  pal- 
pitaient  deux  petites  ailes  de  plumes  de  paon.  Sa 
robe  semblait  taill^e  dans  le  crepe  des  libellules,  et 
son  soulier  dans  le  corolle  d'un  lis.  Elle  apparaissait 
et  s'eVanouissait  comme  une  vision  impalpable. 

Q 


242  SOME    MEMORIES   OF   PARIS. 

She  made  diaphanousness  the  fashion  ;  "  toutes 
les  femmes  essayerent  de  se  vaporiser,  a  1'aide 
de  jupes  de  tulle,  de  mousseline,  et  de  tarlatane  ; 
le  blanc  fut  presque  la  seule  couleur  adoptee." 
The  dance  of  Taglioni  was  a  revelation  of  new 
possibilities  :  it  did  not  look  human  ;  she  floated  ; 
when  she  soared  into  the  air  there  seemed  to 
be  no  reason  why  she  should  come  down  again ; 
her  bounds  were  the  flights  of  a  bird.  She  has 
had  no  successor;  stage -dancing  has  become 
acrobatic ;  it  is  no  longer  the  dream  of  grace 
which  she  had  made  of  it.  As  she  ceased  in 
1837  *°  dance  in  Paris  (in  consequence,  I  think, 
of  some  dispute  with  the  management),  it  was 
in  London  that  I  saw  her.  She  was  not  only 
extraordinary,  but  incredible ;  there  was  no 
believing  that  such  aerial  movements  could  be 
performed  by  a  woman. 

I  leave  the  ballet  where  I  found  it,  in  the  foyer 
de  la  danse,  its  now  half-abandoned  home.  My 
object  in  referring  once  more  to  that  foyer  is  to 
observe  that,  while  everybody  went  to  it,  nobody 
but  musicians  ever  looked,  or  do  look,  into  the 
foyer  du  chant.  Singers,  unlike  dancers,  fear  cold 
air,  and  stay  in  their  dressing-rooms  until  the  last 
moment ;  if  they  appear  at  all  in  their  foyer,  they 
are  so  wrapped  up  that  they  are  in  no  way  smart. 


THE    OPERA.  243 

I  have  but  two  or  three  disjointed  details  to 
tell  of  them,  for  the  stories  about  singers  are 
even  rarer  than  those  about  dancers :  they  have 
fewer  loves,  but  even  more  jealousies,  and,  on 
the  whole,  are  very  uninteresting  personally. 

The  first  female  singer  at  the  Paris  opera 
was  Mademoiselle  de  Castilly,  who  appeared  in 
"  Pomone."  As  she  was  of  noble  birth,  she 
obtained  from  Louis  XIV.  an  edict  declaring 
that  "tous  les  gentilshommes  et  damoiselles 
puissent  chanter  aux  dites  pieces  et  represen- 
tations de  notre  Academie  royale,  sans  que 
pour  ce  ils  soient  censes  deroger  au  dit  titre 
de  noblesse,  ou  a  leurs  privileges,  droits,  et 
immunit6s." 

After  her  came  a  series  of  names  which  have 
grown,  more  or  less,  into  the  history  of  music. 
The  famous  Sophie  Arnoult  was  not  only  a 
great  singer,  but  also  the  most  brilliant  wit  of 
her  time ;  most  of  the  bom  mots  of  the  eigh- 
teenth century  were  attributed  to  her.  It  was 
she  who  created  the  role  of  Eurydice  in  Gluck's 
"  Orphee  "  on  its  first  performance  in  1774. 

Mademoiselle  Falcon,  who  appeared  in  1832, 
had  an  immense  success :  never  had  a  more 
magnificent  singer  been  heard ;  but,  after  eight 
years  of  triumphs,  her  voice  failed  suddenly  one 


244  SOME  MEMORIES  OF  PARIS. 

night  in  the  middle  of  a  performance.  It  was 
gone ! 

The  subjects  of  all  the  earlier  operas  repre- 
sented in  Paris  were  drawn,  according  to  the 
usage  of  the  period,  from  mythology,  the  '  Iliad,' 
or  Greek  history.  "Jephte,"  in  1731,  was  the 
first  piece  taken  from  the  Bible.  The  Arch- 
bishop protested  against  it,  and  got  the  repre- 
sentation stopped.  But  the  interdict  was  soon 
removed,  and  from  that  moment  all  sources 
were  open  to  the  libretto-maker. 

The  first  rdle  written  for  a  contralto  voice 
was  in  Campra's  opera  of  "  Tancrede,"  brought 
out  in  1702.  The  object  was  to  utilise  the 
superb  lower  notes  of  Mademoiselle  Maupin. 

After  these  slight  indications  of  scattered 
points  in  the  records  of  the  Paris  Opera,  I  go 
on  now  to  such  few  of  my  own  recollections 
as  have  remained  clear.  The  mass  of  them 
represent,  as  I  have  already  said,  a  kaleido- 
scopic mist.  I  see  a  great  confusion  of  mixed 
colours  and  faint  sparklings  and  almost  shape- 
less forms ;  I  am  vaguely  conscious  of  much 
chatter  and  much  laughter;  I  dimly  hear  the 
shouts  or  the  warblings  of  song,  and  the  crash- 
ing or  the  whispering  of  music ;  I  hazily  per- 


THE    OPERA.  245 

ceive  lights,  diamonds,  smiles,  shoulders,  legs, 
costumes,  trees,  mountains,  lakes,  processions, 
battles,  a  variety  of  crimes,  wild  loves  and 
equally  wild  hates,  and  all  the  rest  that  helps 
to  make  up  a  lyric  tragedy  or  a  ballet.  That, 
in  the  main,  is  what  remains  to  me  of  long 
years  of  Opera ;  but  as  nobody  else  (nobody 
at  least  that  I  have  known)  can  honestly  pre- 
tend that  he  preserves  much  more,  and  as  no 
other  sorts  of  what  is  called  amusement  have 
left  behind  them  any  plainer  traces  for  me,  I 
do  not  feel  justified  in  addressing  any  special 
reproach  to  the  Opera,  because  my  memories 
of  it  are  so  nearly  blank.  On  the  contrary, 
I  feel  very  grateful  to  it  for  the  little  I  do 
remember. 

In  Gounod's  "Tribut  de  Zamora"  (which,  I 
fancy,  is  not  known  in  England)  Madame  Krauss 
filled  the  role  of  a  Spanish  woman,  a  native  of 
Zamora,  who  had  been  taken  prisoner  twenty 
years  before  by  the  Moors,  her  husband  being 
killed  fighting  and  her  baby  lost,  and  who  had 
gone  mad  from  the  shock.  She  appears  in  the 
piece  at  forty  years  of  age,  after  spending  half 
her  life  amongst  her  enemies,  treated  by  them 
with  respect  precisely  because  she  has  lost  her 
reason.  At  the  moment  when  she  comes  on, 


246  SOME    MEMORIES    OF    PARIS. 

the  Spanish  girls  who  are  sent  each  year  as 
tribute,  under  a  disgraceful  treaty  with  the 
Moors,  are  brought  in  from  Zamora.  One  of 
them  is  kind  to  the  crazy  woman,  tries  to 
soothe  her,  and,  sadly,  talks  to  her  of  Zamora. 
"Zamora?"  repeats  the  other,  wistfully,  al- 
most tenderly,  as  if  listening  to  a  far-off  echo, 
"  Zamora  ?  "  The  girl,  surprised,  asks,  "  Do 
you  know  Zamora  ? "  The  dull  meaningless 
answer  is  again,  "  Zamora ! "  Then  the  girl 
tells  her  own  story,  speaks  of  her  father  killed 
on  the  ramparts  by  the  Moors,  of  her  mother 
carried  off  by  them  just  after  she  herself  was 
born,  of  the  kind  friends  who  brought  her  up ; 
and  the  other  listens  vacantly,  reiterating  gently 
"Zamora!"  Suddenly,  with  a  start,  the  mad 
woman  snatches  at  the  girl,  drags  her  hurriedly 
to  the  footlights,  stares  at  her  insanely,  touches 
her,  pulls  her,  muttering  again  and  again 
"Zamora!"  struggling,  at  first  feebly;  then,  by 
degrees,  excitedly ;  at  last,  with  frantic  passion, 
making  terrific  efforts  to  form  thought.  Her 
lips  part ;  a  hoarse  cry  comes  from  them,  but 
it  tells  nothing;  her  kindled  eyes  grow  dull 
again.  The  girl  gazes  at  her  terror-struck; 
others  gather  round  the  maniac  and  watch  her 
with  awe.  She  falls  upon  her  knees,  pulling 


THE    OPERA.  247 

the  girl  down  to  her  with  the  left  hand,  pointing 
the  other  hand  out  before  her  into  space  with 
an  awfulness  of  idiotic  eagerness  I  have  never 
seen  attained  by  any  other  actress.  Again  the 
moaning  cry  comes  from  her,  terribly  appealing, 
"  Zamora !  "  With  a  wild  leap  she  springs 
to  her  feet,  hurls  back  her  tangled  hair,  flings 
up  her  distorted  eyes,  and  from  her  lips  burst 
out  three  hysterical  notes,  sounding  like  the 
opening  of  a  chant.  With  a  strain  so  fearful 
that  it  is  positively  painful  to  watch,  she 
crouches  down  again,  glares  vacantly  before 
her,  and  then  pours  out  more  notes — this  time 
with  half-spoken  words !  Memory  is  awak- 
ing !  Savagely  the  stress  goes  on ;  its  fury 
seems  to  crush  her.  Again  she  falls  upon 
her  knees,  upon  her  hands  even ;  she  bends 
down  to  the  ground ;  lifts  herself  half  up  and 
casts  her  arms  about  imploringly,  as  if  suppli- 
cating for  consciousness.  A  glimmer  shows 
itself  weakly  in  her  eyes  ;  it  gains ;  light  is  in 
them  ;  it  shines  ;  it  flashes ;  it  blazes.  Wildly, 
like  a  panther  from  its  lair,  she  springs  to  her 
feet  again,  desperately  she  throws  her  ravelled 
hair  behind  her,  tears  off  her  hood,  bares  the 
head  that  once  more  begins  to  hold  a  mind, 
and,  hesitating,  broken,  breathless,  clutching 


248  SOME    MEMORIES   OF   PARIS. 

with  her  fingers  at  the  air  as  if  to  seize  sup- 
port from  it,  pronounces,  in  a  fearful  whisper, 
"  Debout,  enfants  de  1'Iberie!"  And  then 
she  goes  on  muttering  "  Debout  .  .  .  debout !  " 
She  stops  again,  incapable,  unknowing.  But 
she  has  said  enough ;  she  has  begun  the  hymn 
of  Zamora !  The  terrified  girl  at  her  side 
has  heard  and  recognised  the  words ;  she 
seizes  gaspingly  the  mad  woman,  holds  her, 
calls  to  her,  implores  her.  The  other  struggles 
on.  Clearer,  plainer,  louder,  come  out  the 
words,  "Debout,  enfants  de  ITberie !  "  Again 
and  again  she  tries,  but  she  knows  not  more. 
At  last,  after  overpowering  effort,  with  all-con- 
quering passion,  strained  to  her  fullest  height, 
her  head  uplifted,  her  arms  stretched  out  as  if 
to  grasp  the  sky,  her  eyes  a  flame  of  radiance, 
a  flood  of  bewildered  joy,  of  returned  reason, 
pouring  over  her,  rushing  out  of  her  in  every 
gesture,  she  shouts  out,  in  thundering  notes, 
the  whole  fierce  chant — 

"  Debout,  enfants  de  l'Ibe"rie  !     Haut  les  glaives  et  haut 

les  cceurs  ! 
Des   pai'ens  nous  serons  vainqueurs,  ou  nous   mourrons 

pour  la  patrie  ! " 

Then,  turning  burningly  to  the  girl,  she  cries, 
"  And  you  ?  "  It  is  her  daughter ! 


THE    OPERA.  249 

It  has  never  been  given  to  me  to  behold  on 
the  stage  such  a  scene  as  that.  Even  if  I  had 
seen  nothing  else  to  recollect,  it  would  have 
been  worth  while  to  go  vacantly  to  the  Opera 
for  fifty  years  in  order  to  wait  for  that.  The 
first  time  I  was  present  at  it  I  happened  to  be 
in  a  stage-box,  with  Madame  Krauss  ten  feet 
from  me.  My  throat  dried,  my  back  grew 
cold,  my  heart  seemed  to  stop  beating.  The 
effect  was  almost  awful  in  its  intensity.  I  had 
always  regarded  Madame  Krauss  as  a  pro- 
digiously powerful  dramatic  artist,  but  in  that 
scene  she  surpassed  all  I  had  conceived  pos- 
sible. I  need  scarcely  say  that  I  never  talked 
while  that  scene  was  on.  The  rest  of  the  opera 
was  flat,  but  those  minutes  were  tremendous ; 
they  do  indeed  stand  out  in  my  memories  of  the 
Opera. 

Another  recollection  of  a  very  different  nature 
is,  for  other  reasons,  almost  as  fresh  in  my  head. 
Soon  after  the  present  house  was  opened  (I  for- 
get the  year)  Johann  Strauss  came  to  Paris  with 
his  band,  and  gave  a  concert  in  the  staircase  of 
the  Opera,  which  was  then  still  in  the  glory  of 
its  novelty.  The  concert  was  for  the  benefit 
of  the  Austro  -  Hungarian  Charity  Society  of 
France,  and  was  under  the  patronage,  and  in- 


250  SOME    MEMORIES   OF   PARIS. 

deed  under  the  management,  of  the  Austrian 
Embassy.  All  Paris  went  to  it, — ex-kings,  ex- 
princes,  and  all  sorts  of  other  people.  The 
house  itself  was  not  opened ;  the  visitors  were 
admitted  only  to  the  staircase  and  its  sur- 
roundings— that  is  to  say,  to  the  great  land- 
ings on  each  floor,  to  the  public  foyer  and 
avant- foyer,  and  to  the  colonnades,  arcades, 
and  corridors  around.  This  does  not  seem 
much  in  words,  but  in  fact  it  means  an  enor- 
mous space.  And  for  architectural  and  orna- 
mental effect  nothing  more  splendid  is  to  be 
found  in  Europe ;  such  a  grouping  of  marbles, 
columns,  sculptures,  colours,  metals,  and  varied 
decorations  exists  nowhere  else.  The  orchestra 
was  placed  in  the  colonnade  between  the  open 
side  of  the  back  of  the  staircase  and  the 
foyer.  Chairs  were  against  the  walls  wherever 
it  was  possible  to  put  them.  The  balconies 
were  reserved  for  the  diplomatic  body  and 
great  personages.  The  public  walked  about  or 
sat,  and  met  friends  and  chatted.  A  brilliant 
show  it  was,  and  the  music  was  most  effective. 
From  the  "  Blauen  Donau  "  to  the  "  Kiinstler- 
Leben,"  Strauss  played  almost  every  one  of 
his  compositions,  and  played  them  with  that 
quivering  swing,  that  half -dreamy,  half -fiery 


THE    OPERA.  251 

throe,  and,  above  all,  with  that  flickering, 
caressing  hesitation  on  certain  notes,  which 
are  all  so  markedly  distinctive  of  the  Vienna 
manner  of  performing  waltz  music.  The 
audience  was  fairly  carried  away.  The  suc- 
cess was  enormous.  Everybody  congratu- 
lated Count  Kuefstein,  the  First  Secretary 
of  the  Austrian  Embassy,  on  having  con- 
ceived so  luminous  an  idea.  A  concert  in  a 
staircase !  But  admirable  as  was  the  effect, 
there  was  a  flaw  in  it.  When  everybody  had 
arrived  (and  everybody  came  early),  the  stair- 
case itself,  which  was  the  centre  of  everything, 
as  the  arena  is  the  centre  of  a  bull  -  ring, 
remained  absolutely  empty.  The  landings  on 
the  first  floor  were  crammed  with  ball  dresses 
and  black  coats,  but  in  the  middle  was  a  vast 
hole,  white,  lustrous,  void,  engulfing.  Not  one 
soul  passed  up  or  down  or  stood  upon  those 
blanched  marble  steps.  The  chasm  grew 
more  and  more  yawning,  cold,  and  painful, 
because  everybody  sat  or  stood  or  strolled 
around  it  and  gazed  into  it.  People  seemed 
to  become  almost  oppressed  by  it.  I,  in  par- 
ticular, looked  at  it  with  awe,  for  I  was 
obliged  to  go  away ;  I  had  to  be  elsewhere 
at  eleven.  Now  going  away  meant  going 


252  SOME    MEMORIES    OF    PARIS. 

down  that  staircase;  it  meant  leaping,  like 
Curtius,  into  that  chasm ;  it  meant  the  de- 
scent of  that  endless  series  of  white  polished 
slabs  (which  I  had  till  then  admired,  but 
which  at  that  moment  I  hated)  by  a  man 
alone  in  black,  with  all  Paris  looking  at  him. 
I  advanced  fearfully  to  the  crest  of  one  of  the 
wide  flights  and  cast  my  eyes  into  its  depths. 
It  appalled  me !  I  shrank  from  the  awful 
plunge.  It  was  like  forming  a  storming- 
party  all  alone.  I  wandered  away  again, 
and  sought  in  the  crowd  for  some  one  who 
looked  as  if  he  wanted  to  go,  so  that  I  might 
follow  him.  I  felt  capable  of  any  sort  of 
meanness  in  order  to  obtain  a  leader,  or,  at 
all  events,  a  companion.  Not  one !  Every- 
body stopped  stolidly  and  solidly,  and  evidently 
everybody  meant  to  stop  until  the  end.  It 
was  already  past  eleven !  At  last,  with  an 
effort  of  will  and  a  sentiment  of  duty,  to 
which  I  have  looked  back  ever  since  with 
admiration,  I  walked  straight  to  the  top  step, 
clenched  my  teeth  (I  wanted  to  shut  my  eyes 
too,  but  I  needed  them  open),  and,  alone, 
began  the  descent.  With  a  determination  to 
appear  indifferent,  which  was  never  surpassed 
by  the  boldest  criminal  on  his  way  to  execu- 


THE    OPERA.  253 

tion,  I  positively  sauntered  down !  Notwith- 
standing my  emotion,  I  did  not  hurry.  I  had 
the  consciousness  that,  to  the  assembled  eyes 
above,  I  must  have  looked  like  a  fly  crawling 
across  a  ceiling;  but  I  persisted.  In  safety 
I  reached  the  bottom,  disappeared  into  the 
entrance-hall,  and  breathed.  I  knew  that  Paris 
loved  to  scoff,  and  I  expected  to  be  known 
thenceforth  as  "  the  staircase  man " ;  but,  to 
my  intense  relief,  I  found  next  day  that  not  a 
soul  had  noticed  me,  and  that  all  my  terror 
had  been  wasted.  All  the  same,  I  had  rather 
not  do  it  again. 

Another  recollection  that  has  remained  very 
clear  to  me  is  of  something  that  happened  out- 
side the  old  house.  One  night,  in  January 
1858,  I  had  dined  in  the  Champs  Elysees,  had 
lingered  there,  and  had  not  started  for  the 
Opera  till  nearly  half-past  ten.  When  the  cab 
that  carried  me  reached  the  bottom  of  the 
Chausse'e  d'Antin,  it  began  to  go  slowly,  and 
finally  pulled  up.  I  found  myself  in  a  crowd. 
I  put  my  head  out  and  asked  the  nearest  man 
what  was  the  matter.  He  answered  excitedly, 
"  They  have  tried  to  assassinate  the  Emperor; 
the  Boulevard  is  barred ;  you  cannot  go  on." 
Then  up  came  a  policeman  shrieking  out  the 


254  SOME    MEMORIES    OF    PARIS. 

order  to  turn  back  and  clear  the  way.  I  ques- 
tioned him,  but  of  course  obtained  no  reply 
whatever.  So  I  left  the  cab  and  went  on  to 
the  pavement,  in  the  double  hope  of  hearing 
details  and  of  reaching  the  Opera  on  foot. 

As  everybody  was  bursting  with  the  news, 
I  was  told  in  half  a  minute  by  half-a-dozen 
eager  strangers  that  an  infernal  machine  had 
exploded  an  hour  before  in  the  Rue  Le  Pelle- 
tier  at  the  moment  when  the  Emperor  and 
Empress  had  reached  the  entrance  to  the 
Opera,  and  that,  though  neither  of  them  was 
hurt,  their  carriage  had  been  half  smashed, 
and  numbers  of  other  people  had  been  killed 
or  wounded.  I  learnt  too  that  every  street 
was  closed,  that  no  one  was  allowed  to  approach 
the  scene,  and  that  it  was  idle  to  dream  of 
getting  any  farther.  The  emotion  of  the  mob 
was  immense ;  horror  of  the  crime  and  attach- 
ment to  the  Imperial  dynasty  were  loudly  pro- 
fessed. I  daresay,  however,  that  the  suspicion 
of  the  presence  of  detectives  listening  for 
evidence  stimulated  somewhat  the  rather  ex- 
aggerated expressions  of  loyalty  I  heard  around 
me.  In  five  minutes  many  descriptions  of  the 
explosion  had  been  supplied  to  me, — most  of 
them  in  contradiction  with  each  other, — and 


THE    OPERA.  255 

I  began  to  feel  that  I  had  exhausted  the  public 
sources  of  information  available  on  the  Boule- 
vard. So  I  turned  up  the  Chaussee  d'Antin  to 
see  if  it  was  possible  to  get  through  the  Rue  de 
Provence  to  the  Rue  Le  Pelletier.  Before  I  had 
gone  ten  yards  I  met  a  friend  who  told  me  he 
had  made  the  attempt,  had  been  turned  back  by 
the  police,  and  that  he  was  certain  it  was  idle  to 
try  to  reach  the  Opera  in  any  direction  whatever. 
As  he  hurried  on  to  carry  the  news  to  his  club,  I 
asked  myself  suddenly  how  the  people  inside  the 
Opera  would  get  away  ?  If  nobody  on  foot  could 
reach  the  entrance,  it  was  clear  that  no  carriage 
could  arrive  there  either;  and  the  fate  of  the 
ladies  began  to  interest  me,  especially  as  the 
night  was  cheerless  and  cold.  So  I  risked  say- 
ing to  a  passing  policeman,  "  I  have  friends  in 
the  Opera,  and  am  anxious  about  them.  How 
will  they  come  out  ?  "  For  a  wonder,  he  was 
civil.  He  answered,  "  Well,  the  people,  I  be- 
lieve, are  coming  away  now,  on  foot,  round  by 
the  back  streets.  I  don't  think  anybody  is 
allowed  to  go  by  the  Boulevard.  I  have  seen 
nothing  myself,  but  that  is  what  I  hear  from 
my  comrades  on  the  beat."  I  thanked  him, 
and  went  on  up  the  Chaussee  d'Antin  to  see 
if  this  was  true.  The  crowd  was  thickening 


256  SOME    MEMORIES    OF   PARIS. 

everywhere,  for  people  were  arriving  from  all 
parts  of  Paris ;  feelings  of  rage  and  horror,  and 
particularly  of  shame,  were  being  expressed  in 
loud  voices.  I  pressed  on  as  well  as  I  could, 
and,  with  considerable  difficulty,  squeezed  my- 
self at  last  to  the  corner  of  the  Rue  St  Lazare, 
where  the  road  was  closed  by  a  cordon  of  police. 
In  vain  did  I  appeal  to  the  sergents  de  ville,  and 
urge  that  I  was  searching  for  news  of  friends; 
they  refused  to  listen  to  me  or  to  the  dozen 
other  persons  who  wanted  to  pass  for  the  same 
reason.  I  saw,  however,  through  the  shoulders 
of  the  people  in  front  of  me,  that  ladies  in 
evening  dress  were  hurrying  along  the  Rue  St 
Lazare,  which,  at  that  point,  appeared  to  be  kept 
free  for  them,  and  I  recognised  that  a  portion 
of  the  audience  was  really  escaping  that  way. 
My  alarm  as  to  the  fate  of  many  acquain- 
tances who,  I  knew,  were  at  the  Opera  that 
night,  grew  stronger  from  contact  with  the 
emotion  of  the  crowd,  and,  after  a  good  deal 
of  hesitation,  I  decided  to  go  to  the  Rue  Tron- 
chet,  to  inquire  if  some  great  friends  who  lived 
there,  and  whose  night  it  was,  had  returned 
home.  I  found  the  concierge  asleep,  and  for  half 
a  minute  could  not  make  him  understand  my 
errand ;  but  when  he  had  woke  up  and  compre- 


THE    OPERA.  257 

bended,  he  burst  into  a  violent  commotion, 
jumped  out  of  bed,  flung  on  his  clothes,  and 
declared  that  he  would  go  at  once  to  arrest 
the  murderers  and  pick  up  the  wounded.  I  had 
some  difficulty  in  persuading  him  that  he  had 
better  leave  those  functions  to  the  police,  and 
that  his  duty  was  to  let  the  servants  know 
what  had  happened,  so  that  they  might  make 
up  big  fires  and  have  boiling  water  ready  for 
their  mistress  and  her  daughters  (who  had  not 
come  home).  So  there  he  and  I  stopped,  wait- 
ing, nervously,  listening  for  steps  in  the  street, 
till  suddenly,  at  midnight,  the  bell  rang  sharply, 
and  in  they  came,  half  frozen  and  terribly  up- 
set. They  crouched  before  the  fires  and  shiv- 
ered a  good  deal,  from  excitement  quite  as  much 
as  from  cold.  They  knew  almost  less  than  I 
did:  they  had  heard  the  explosion  faintly,  and 
did  not  ask  what  it  meant ;  but  in  two  or  three 
minutes  the  news  ran  like  fire  round  the  house ; 
everybody  rose  ;  many  left  their  places  to  inquire ; 
the  panic  was  intense.  Suddenly  the  Emperor 
and  Empress  were  in  their  box,  came  to  the 
front,  and,  very  pale  but  very  self- controlled, 
faced  the  audience.  Then  out  burst  frantic 
cheering,  wild,  furious,  unrepressible ;  it  con- 
tinued for  minutes ;  the  women  waving  hand- 
R 


258  SOME    MEMORIES   OF    PARIS. 

kerchiefs,  most  of  them  with  tears  in  their 
eyes;  the  sovereigns  bowing.  It  was  impos- 
sible to  think  of  continuing  the  performance; 
the  shouting  was  too  tremendous,  too  enthusi- 
astic, too  lasting  to  leave  room  for  anything 
else.  After  a  quarter  of  an  hour  (to  allow 
time  for  fetching  fresh  carriages,  instead  of  the 
damaged  ones)  the  Emperor  and  Empress  left 
again,  amidst  roars  and  tempests  of  bravos. 
Then  everybody  tried  to  go  away,  but  found 
it  could  not  be  managed.  The  street  was 
impassable — partly  from  damage  done,  partly 
from  the  constant  carrying  away  of  wounded 
(many  of  whom  had  been  hit  in  the  houses), 
partly  from  the  stoppage  of  circulation  by  the 
police.  So  there  they  all  had  to  remain  until 
a  passage  was  arranged  for  them,  and  they 
could  be  despatched  successively.  My  friends 
were  too  disturbed  to  remember  more,  and  the 
little  they  did  know  was  not  at  all  clear  in 
their  heads.  They  could  not  find  a  cab,  but 
were  accompanied  in  their  walk  by  two  gentle- 
men, who,  when  they  had  seen  them  inside 
their  door,  hastened  to  their  own  homes  to 
relieve  the  anxiety  of  their  families. 

Next  morning  the   details   began   to   take  a 
form ;  but,  if  I  remember  correctly,  it  was  not 


THE    OPERA.  259 

for  two  or  three  days  that  the  authors  of  the 
attack  were  traced  and  caught. 

It  was  what  is  known  in  history  as  the  Orsini 
plot. 

The  shake  of  Madame  Bosio  has  left  me 
an  impression  of  another  sort.  It  was  as- 
serted and  believed  that  nobody  else  ever 
possessed  such  a  shake,  and  assuredly  it  was 
utterly  bewildering.  It  was  smooth  as  the 
surface  of  calm  water,  rhythmical  as  the  beat- 
ing of  a  clock,  pulsating  as  the  throb  of  an 
engine,  enduring  as  an  unknown  quantity.  No 
bird  ever  carolled  more  trillingly,  no  star  ever 
scintillated  more  brilliantly,  no  diamond  ever 
sparkled  more  dazzlingly.  When  we  knew  that 
shake  was  coming,  we  strained  our  ears  in  pre- 
paration ;  while  it  lasted  we  held  our  breath  in 
fascination ;  when  it  ended  we  shouted  out  ap- 
plause in  intoxication.  Of  course  it  was  purely 
mechanical ;  of  course  there  was  no  passion  in 
it;  of  course  it  was  mere  vocal  dexterity,  and 
in  no  way  the  lyrical  expression  of  a  feeling; 
but,  all  the  same,  it  was  as  utterly  apart  in 
song  as  was  the  floating  of  Taglioni  in  dance. 
Amongst  the  luminosities  which  here  and  there 
light  up  my  memories  of  the  Paris  Opera,  I 
put  it  high. 


C6O  '    SOME    MEMORIES   OF    PARIS. 

Another  reminiscence  is  not  personal  to  me, 
for  I  was  not  present  at  the  scenes  which  com- 
pose it ;  but  as  it  offers  interest  of  a  special 
sort,  and  as  I  have  often  heard  the  scenes 
described  by  those  who  saw  them,  I  venture 
to  include  an  allusion  to  them.  Under  the 
influence  of  Princess  Metternich,  whose  hus- 
band had  come  in  the  preceding  year  to  France 
as  Austrian  Ambassador,  "Tannhauser"  was 
played  at  the  Paris  Opera  in  March  1861.  It 
was  hissed,  howled  at,  scorned,  and  driven 
off !  Paris  could  not  bear  it !  After  three 
tumultuous  representations  it  was  withdrawn. 
At  that  time  no  political  feeling  was  involved : 
France  and  Prussia  were  good  friends.  The 
objections  were  derived  not  from  international 
enmity,  but  from  profound  and  thoroughly  hon- 
est repugnance  to  the  music.  The  opera-going 
public  of  the  Second  Empire  wanted  to  be 
amused,  not  bored, — and  "  Tannhauser  "  bored. 
A  horrid  mot  was  made  about  it :  "  Qa  tanne 
aux  airs  et  9a  embete  aux  morceaux."  The 
result  was  that  society  misbehaved  itself.  The 
three  evenings  were  passed  in  riot — not  violent, 
but  contemptuous.  It  is  not  often  that  the 
public  of  the  Opera  rejects  the  dishes  placed 
before  it ;  on  that  occasion  it  did  so  unmis- 


THE    OPERA.  26l 

takably,  subject  to  changing  its  mind  thirty 
years  afterwards.  It  has  now  learnt  to  adore 
what  it  then  reviled. 

I  conclude  by  the  end,  as  is  becoming.  One 
of  the  pleasantest  and  most  amusing  of  the 
very  various  contents  of  an  evening  at  the  Paris 
Opera,  and  certainly  the  portion  which  affords 
the  most  favourable  opportunity  for  observation 
of  local  types  and  manners,  is  the  process 
of  going  away.  Of  course  all  goings  -  away 
are  more  or  less  alike,  no  matter  in  what 
country  they  are  performed ;  but  there  is, 
nevertheless,  something  in  the  Paris  fashion 
of  doing  it,  something  supremely  living,  which 
is  altogether  proper  to  itself.  When  the  break- 
up comes ;  when  the  staircase  is  so  crowded 
with  descenders  from  all  the  floors  (rather 
different  from  its  state  that  night  when  I 
alone  was  on  it)  that  they  have  to  wait 
on  every  step ;  when,  at  last,  the  emerging 
crowd  arrives  in  the  great  entrance-hall  below, 
then  meetings  multiply,  and  chattering  bursts 
out  feverishly,  conscious  that  it  has  reached 
its  final  moments,  and  that  it  may  be  stopped 
abruptly  at  any  instant  by  the  announcement 
of  the  carriage.  The  groupings  and  un- 
groupings  of  the  throng,  the  shifting  shapings 


262  SOME    MEMORIES   OF   PARIS. 

of  the  knots  of  men  and  women,  are  incessant. 
Goodbye  is  heard  in  every  tone  and  language. 
The  scene  is  made  more  curious — or  at  all 
events  more  representative  —  by  the  mixture 
of  classes.  The  entire  audience  is  there,  from 
top  to  bottom.  Bonnets  and  shawls  pass  side 
by  side  with  diamonds  and  resplendent  cloaks. 
And  as,  at  that  moment,  the  doors  are  no  longer 
guarded,  any  decent-looking  person  from  outside 
can  come  in  and  contemplate.  It  is  a  strange 
confusion  of  brilliancy  and  shabbiness,  with  a 
good  deal  of  the  always  evident  effort  to  look 
dressed  with  insufficient  means.  Typical  ex- 
amples of  Paris  women  are  all  about.  The 
Duchesse  des  Sept  Croisades,  her  tongue 
ejaculating  to  three  men  at  once ;  her  ugly 
little  petulant  face  scrambling  effervescingly 
out  of  a  jungle  of  lace;  the  infinite  elegance 
of  her  person  spreading  radiance  around  her 
(sharp  contrasts  between  face  and  person  are 
special  marks  of  Paris)  ;  her  rose  satin  skirts 
held  daintily  and  rather  loftily  away  from  pos- 
sible obnoxious  contacts ;  her  delicate  feet 
reflected  glimmeringly  on  the  dark  marble 
of  the  floor, — is  gazed  upon  by  two  admiring, 
though  manifestly  jealous,  work  -  girls,  totally 
awake  and  partially  attractive,  from  the  gallery. 


THE   OPERA.  263 

Three  stiff,  frumpish  Englishwomen,  who  look 
excessively  out  of  place  in  that  animated 
gathering,  are  staring  with  wonder  at  her 
gestures  and  her  noise,  and  in  half  awed 
whispers  are  expressing  shocked  astonishment 
to  each  other.  In  contrast  with  the  Duchesse, 
Madame  de  V.  stands  cold,  silent,  stately; 
a  very  high  model  of  actual  Frenchwomen, 
immensely  distinguished,  but,  like  all  the  rest 
of  them,  distinguished  rather  than  aristocratic. 
The  young  lady  who  is  known  as  the  "  Cali- 
fornian  nugget "  has  removed  herself  a  little 
apart  from  the  friends  who  brought  her,  and 
is  surrounded  by  a  thick  circle  of  young  gentle- 
men, each  one  of  whom  is  doing  his  utmost, 
according  to  his  lights,  to  persuade  her  that 
he  alone  can  make  her  happy.  Regarded  as 
a  public  exhibition  of  various  devices  of  love- 
making  (most  of  them  of  an  extremely  ele- 
mentary nature)  the  scene  may  have  interest 
for  the  worldly  philosopher;  otherwise  it  can 
scarcely  be  considered  to  constitute  an  at- 
tractive element  of  the  show.  Madame  de  K. 
hurries  out  on  the  arm  of  C.,  leaving  behind 
her,  in  coruscating  waves,  the  wide  wake  of 
glances  and  admiration,  of  smiles  and  saluta- 
tions, which  constitutes  une  sortie  triomphale. 


264  SOME    MEMORIES   OF   PARIS. 

Others  follow,  at  each  instant,  with  much  frou- 
frou  of  silk,  and  with  more  or  less  last  words, 
last  laughings,  and  last  shruggings.  Unfortun- 
ately it  is  invariably  the  smartest  people  who 
get  away  first,  because  their  servants  know  their 
business  and  bring  up  the  carriages  at  once; 
while  the  dowdies  are,  as  invariably,  the  last. 
The  perfection  of  the  exhibition  endures  therefore 
only  for  some  five  minutes :  during  that  period 
the  movement  is  so  fermenting  and  so  vivid,  so 
stirred  by  the  restlessness  of  its  components, 
so  lighted  by  brilliancies,  so  diversified  by 
contrasts  of  types  and  ways,  that  it  affords 
a  very  special  view  of  Paris.  There  is  nothing 
in  it  like  the  beauty  of  faces  one  sees  in  London 
on  similar  occasions ;  but  there  is  an  immensely 
greater  air  and  consciousness  of  vitality,  more 
indeed,  by  very  far,  than  in  the  waiting-hall 
of  any  other  opera-house  in  Europe.  It  is  not 
only  vitality,  it  is  almost  eagerness;  everybody 
lives  acutely  for  the  instant.  Suddenly  it 
is  finished  ;  all  is  empty ;  the  gas  goes  out ; 
another  Opera  night  is  over. 


CHAPTER    XL 

INDOOR   LIFE. 

NOTWITHSTANDING  the  amalgamating  action 
of  the  new  international  influences  which  have 
come  into  operation  during  the  present  century, 
the  ancient  differences  persist  between  the 
exterior  habits,  the  personal  looks,  and  the 
ways  of  behaving  of  the  peoples  of  Europe : 
they  are  weakened,  but  they  are  not  suppressed. 
The  upper  classes  of  various  lands  —  whose 
educational  surroundings  are  becoming  more 
and  more  alike  —  are  approximating  rapidly  to 
each  other  in  appearance  and  manners ;  but 
even  amongst  them  diversities  continue  to  sub- 
sist which,  slight  as  they  are  in  comparison 
with  what  they  used  to  be,  are,  nevertheless, 
obviously  perceptible.  And  when  we  look  at 
the  masses,  variations  glare  at  us.  Who  has 
ever  crossed  a  frontier  without  being  impressed 


266  SOME    MEMORIES   OF   PARIS. 

by  their  abundance  ?  In  that  striking  example 
the  suddenness  of  the  change  augments  its 
volume;  the  world  of  just  now  has  disappeared 
abruptly,  and  an  utterly  transformed  one  has 
assumed  its  place  —  the  dress,  the  physical 
aspect,  the  language,  even  the  movements, 
of  the  people  round  us  have  become  other. 
After  a  period  of  residence  in  a  country,  a 
certain  amount  of  habit  forms  itself;  the  eye 
and  ear  become  accustomed ;  but  at  the  instant 
of  first  entry  almost  every  detail  surprises  by  its 
strangeness,  and  evidence  enough  is  supplied 
to  us  that,  on  the  outside,  nations  are  still 
strikingly  dissimilar. 

I  say  "on  the  outside,"  because  what  is 
viewed  in  ordinary  travel  is  nothing  but  out- 
side— the  railway-station,  the  port,  the  street, 
the  shop,  the  theatre,  and  the  hotel.  The  in- 
door life  of  other  lands  lies,  almost  always, 
beyond  the  reach  of  the  foreigner :  rarely  can 
he  enter  it  at  all,  or,  if  he  does  scrape  into  it 
a  little,  he  does  not  crawl  beyond  its  fringes; 
he  is  not  admitted  to  live  in  it,  with  it,  and 
of  it,  and,  in  most  cases,  remains  uninformed 
as  to  its  true  nature,  and  as  to  the  realities  of 
national  peculiarity  which  it  reveals.  Even 
of  a  city  so  much  visited  and  so  much  talked 


INDOOR    LIFE.  267 

about  as  Paris,  most  travellers  know  nothing 
intimately ;  it  is  only  here  and  there,  by 
accident,  privilege,  or  relationship,  that  a  few 
strangers  (very  few)  manage  to  get  inside  its 
doors.  The  French  keep  their  dwellings  resol- 
utely shut ;  they  have  small  curiosity  about 
foreign  persons  or  things,  dislike  to  have  their 
habits  disturbed  by  intruders ;  are  dominated— 
especially  since  1871 — by  the  bitterest  patriotic 
hates,  are  in  no  degree  cosmopolitan,  are 
passionately  convinced  of  the  superiority  of 
France  over  the  rest  of  the  world, —  and,  for 
these  reasons,  though  a  very  sociable  race 
amongst  themselves,  shrink  instinctively  and 
mistrustfully  from  people  of  other  blood.  Of 
course  there  are  amongst  the  great  houses  of 
Paris  a  few  in  which  diplomatists  and  travellers 
of  rank  are  habitually  received ;  but  those 
houses  constitute  exceptions  :  they  stand  apart ; 
and  even  in  them  it  is  rare  to  see  foreigners 
form  intimacies  with  the  French.  I  could 
mention  singular  examples  of  the  extreme 
difficulty  of  becoming  real  friends  with  them, 
even  when  circumstances  are  of  a  nature  to 
arouse  friendship ;  but  such  examples  would 
necessitate  personal  details,  and  personal  details 
point  to  names,  which,  where  private  individuals 


268  SOME    MEMORIES   OF    PARIS. 

are  concerned,  it  is  impossible  to  mention, 
or  even  to  suggest.  Subsidiarily,  as  regards 
ourselves  in  particular,  our  shyness,  and  our 
usually  insufficient  knowledge  of  languages,  and 
of  current  topics  of  conversation  and  of 
the  manner  of  treating  them,  raise  up  special 
barriers  in  our  way.  The  immense  majority 
of  those  who  go  to  Paris  are,  therefore,  unable 
to  perceive  anything  indoors  with  their  own 
eyes ;  and  it  is  only  from  French  books  and  from 
reports  made  to  them  by  such  fellow-country- 
men as,  in  consequence  of  special  circumstances, 
have  been  able  to  look  in,  that  they  can  learn 
anything  exact  of  what  is  going  on  behind  the 
walls  they  stare  at.  As  I  have  looked  in  long 
and  closely,  I  venture  to  add  to  the  second  of 
the  two  classes  of  information  some  of  the 
indoor  experiences  I  have  collected. 

But,  before  I  begin  descriptions,  I  must  make 
some  preliminary  observations  as  regards  the 
situation  of  the  subject. 

The  strongest  of  all  my  notions,  in  looking 
back  to  my  experiences  in  Paris  and  in  com- 
paring them  with  those  I  have  encountered 
in  other  lands,  is  that,  notwithstanding  all 
the  superficial  contrasts — notwithstanding  the 
differences  of  material  organisation,  of  ways, 


INDOOR   LIFE.  269 

and  even  of  habits  of  thought  and  of  national 
character— the  objects,  rules,  and  practical  con- 
ditions of  existence  remain  substantially  the 
same  everywhere.  Exterior  looks  and  details, 
mannerisms,  feelings,  temperaments  and  convic- 
tions vary  endlessly ;  but,  nevertheless,  the  main 
issues  come  out  very  nearly  identical.  It  cannot 
be  pretended,  for  instance,  that  the  French 
differ  fundamentally  from  the  English  because 
they  eat  a  meal  called  breakfast  at  half-past 
eleven,  instead  of  a  meal  called  lunch  at  half- 
past  one ;  because  they  have  their  children  to 
dine  with  them,  instead  of  sending  them  to  bed, 
on  bread  and  milk,  at  seven ;  because  their 
servants  leave  them  at  a  week's  notice  instead 
of  a  month's;  because  they  pay  their  house- 
rent  on  the  I5th  of  January,  April,  July,  and 
October,  instead  of  what  we  call  quarter-days ; 
because  they  have  (or  rather  used  to  have) 
more  elaborate  manners  than  ourselves,  and 
shrug  their  shoulders  more ;  because  they  say 
"  two  times  "  for  "  twice  "  ;  or  because  they 
talk  more  volubly  than  we  do.  These  differ- 
ences, and  a  hundred  others  of  the  same  value, 
are  not  in  reality  differences  at  all ;  they  are 
surface  accidents — they  constitute  variety  to  the 
eye  but  not  to  the  mind.  However  numerous 


27O  SOME    MEMORIES    OF    PARIS. 

and  however  evident  such  outside  variations 
may  be,  they  do  not  affect  the  general  likeness 
of  all  the  workings  out  of  human  nature  any 
more  than  the  immense  diversity  of  husks  affects 
the  methodical  germination  of  the  seeds  within 
them.  This  view  may,  perhaps,  be  regarded  as 
incorrect  by  the  ordinary  traveller,  because  to 
him  the  smallest  newness  appears,  usually,  to 
be  significant,  the  slightest  strangeness  full  of 
meaning.  But  to  ancient  wanderers,  who  have 
had  time  to  grow  inured  and  opportunity  to 
become  acclimatised,  who  have  worn  off  aston- 
ishments, who  have  learnt  by  long  rubbing 
against  others  that  local  demeanours  do  not 
change  either  the  head  or  the  heart,  the  con- 
viction of  universal  unity  becomes  unshakable. 
In  their  eyes  the  vast  majority  of  European 
men  and  women  are  animated  by  exactly  the 
same  passions,  the  same  vanities,  the  same 
general  tendencies,  whatever  be  their  birthplace. 
In  their  eyes  external  dissimilarities,  which 
seem  at  first  sight  to  differentiate  nations  so 
markedly,  are  mere  skin-deep  tokens,  affecting 
only  the  secondary  and  unessential  elements  of 
existence,  and  serving  simply  as  convenient 
distinctive  badges.  The  contacts  of  travel  have 
taught  them  that,  though  it  is  natural  to  attach 


INDOOR   LIFE.  271 

curiosity  to  visible  national  peculiarities,  it  would 
be  a  mistake  to  expect  to  find  behind  them  any 
corresponding  divergences  of  inner  essence. 

Even  national  character — which  has  shown 
itself  everywhere  hitherto  as  a  thoroughly  endur- 
ing reality,  and  which  does  not  exhibit  in  any  of 
its  developments  the  faintest  signs  of  coming 
change — scarcely  produces  in  our  day  any  abso- 
lute distinction  between  the  motives  and  the 
methods  of  life-organisation  in  various  countries. 
It  is,  of  all  race-marks,  the  one  which  exercises 
the  most  effect  on  public  conduct ;  but  I  have  met 
nowhere  any  reasons  for  believing  that  it  changes 
the  constitution  of  private  and  personal  exist- 
ence. By  its  nature,  and  for  its  habitual  forms 
of  exhibition,  it  requires  a  wider  field  of  opera- 
tion than  it  finds  indoors.  It  is  strikingly  dis- 
tinct, constant,  and  energetic  in  its  patriotic 
and  collective  manifestations ;  but  its  effects  are 
infinitely  less  evident  in  small  home  matters. 

Taking  nationality  as  an  accumulative  desig- 
nation for  the  entire  group  of  diversities  which 
distinguish  nations  from  each  other,  it  cannot 
be  said  to  govern,  in  any  appreciable  degree, 
the  essential  composition  of  the  indoor  life  of 
peoples.  It  works  strongly  in  other  directions, 
but  scarcely  at  all  in  that  one.  It  does  not 


272  SOME    MEMORIES    OF    PARIS. 

introduce,  in  any  land,  home  elements  which 
are  entirely  unknown  elsewhere. 

For  this  reason,  in  speaking  of  the  indoor 
life  of  Paris,  I  shall  not  have  much  to  say 
of  radical  differences;  there  are  scarcely  any. 
Even  details,  with  all  their  copious  variety,  do 
not  preserve,  on  examination,  the  vividness  of 
contrast  which  they  present  at  first  sight.  Just 
as  moral  principles  (under  similar  conditions  of 
education)  exist  everywhere  in  broad  averages ; 
just  as  they  show  themselves,  all  about,  in  fairly 
equal  proportions — like  vice  and  virtue,  intelli- 
gence and  stupidity,  health  and  disease — so  do 
the  main  conditions  of  indoor  life  run,  in  all 
countries,  in  parallel  grooves,  slightly  twisted, 
here  and  there,  by  superficialities.  What  there 
is  to  tell,  therefore,  is  about  impressions  rather 
than  about  facts,  about  sensations  rather  than 
about  sights,  almost  indeed  about  resemblances 
rather  than  about  differences. 

But,  what  is  indoor  life  ?  To  some  it  repre- 
sents little  more  than  mere  family  existence; 
to  others,  on  the  contrary,  it  is  but  an  addi- 
tional name  for  society ;  to  others,  again,  it 
represents  a  temporary  separation  from  the 
world,  during  which  we  put  off  the  constraints 
in  which  we  enwrap  ourselves  in  public,  and 


INDOOR   LIFE.  273 

relapse  momentarily  into  the  undistorted  real- 
ities of  self.  With  these  wide  oppositions  of 
interpretation  (and  there  are  more  besides),  it 
is  impossible  for  any  of  us  to  speak  of  indoor 
life  with  the  certainty  that  we  mean  by  it 
the  same  thing  as  others  do.  And  not  only 
does  it  change  its  aspects,  its  objects,  and  its 
significations  with  the  individual  point  of  view 
of  each  of  us,  but  also  with  the  persons  at 
whom  we  happen  to  look.  I  speak,  therefore, 
of  the  indoor  life  of  Paris  for  myself  alone, 
describing  not  so  much  what  I  have  seen  in 
it  as  what  I  have  felt  in  it ;  recognising  heartily 
that  every  other  witness  has  a  right  to  disagree 
with  me,  and  recognising  it  all  the  more  because, 
on  such  a  subject,  it  is  on  instincts  and  ideas 
proper  to  each  one,  rather  than  on  indisputable 
verities  evident  to  all,  that  spectators  base  their 
very  varying  judgments. 

On  one  doctrine  only  is  everybody  likely  to 
be  in  accord  with  everybody  else.  That  doc- 
trine is  that  indoor  life,  whatever  else  it  may 
be  taken  to  import,  implies  essentially  the  life 
of  women,  and  that  its  nature  shifts  about 
with  the  action  of  the  women  who  create  it. 
This  doctrine,  true  everywhere,  is  especially 
true  of  Paris ;  for  there,  more  than  anywhere, 
s 


274  SOME    MEMORIES   OF   PARIS. 

certain  women  stand  out  before  and  above  all 
their  fellows  as  the  national  producers  of  the 
brightest  forms  of  its  indoor  life.  That  life 
is  made  by  them  and  for  them ;  they  manu- 
facture it  in  its  perfected  attractiveness ;  and, 
above  all,  they  typify  it.  They  are  so  thor- 
oughly both  the  composers  and  the  actors  of 
the  piece,  that  a  description  of  it  does  not 
signify  much  more  than  a  description  of  the 
women  who  play  it. 

But  this  is  true  of  very  few  indeed  amongst 
the  women  of  Paris.  They  all  lead,  in  general 
terms,  the  same  sort  of  indoor  life,  so  far  as 
its  outlines  are  concerned ;  yet  scarcely  any 
of  them  help  to  shape  or  guide  it  in  what 
constitutes  its  national  aspects.  Acquaintance 
with  it  shows  that  the  mass  of  them  follow  it 
passively,  but  neither  originate  it  nor  enkindle 
it.  They  are  content  with  dull  humdrum  ex- 
istences, and  take  no  part  in  the  active  com- 
position of  the  typical  aspects  of  the  place. 
They  do  their  duty  placidly,  as  wives,  mothers, 
and  housekeepers  ;  they  are,  most  of  them, 
worthy,  excellent,  estimable  persons  ;  most  of 
them  smoulder  in  inertness.  I  remember  how 
astonished  I  was  at  the  beginning,  when  I  was 
still  under  the  influence  of  the  fanciful  teach- 


INDOOR   LIFE.  275 

ings  of  my  youth,  to  discover,  by  degrees,  that 
Paris  women  were  not,  as  I  had  been  assured 
by  my  British  instructors  of  those  days,  all 
worldly,  all  pleasure -seeking,  all  love-making, 
all  dress-adoring ;  but  that  the  majority  of  them 
were  quiet,  steady,  home-cherishing,  devoid  of 
all  aggressive  personality,  animated  by  a  keen 
sense  of  moral  duty.  Such  is  their  nature 
still,  modified  only,  in  certain  cases,  by  the 
action  of  that  wonderful  French  faculty,  adapt- 
ability, which  fits  those  who  possess  it  for 
any  social  or  even  leading  role.  Unluckily,  the 
faculty  itself  is  rare,  and,  of  those  who  own 
it,  a  good  many  have  neither  the  ambition  nor 
the  power  to  use  it,  and  remain,  just  as  most 
women  do  in  other  lands,  unproductive  in  their 
nullity.  They  are  French  in  the  details  of 
their  ways  and  habits;  but  the  great  heap  of 
them  might  just  as  well  be  anything  else,  so 
far  as  any  national  fruitfulness  is  concerned. 
It  is  not  they  who  stand  out  as  the  makers 
and  the  beacons  of  the  bright  life  of  Paris; 
that  part  is  played  by  a  very  restricted  min- 
ority, which,  small  as  it  is,  lights  up  so  vividly 
the  circles  round  it,  that  it  seems  to  represent 
the  nation  all  alone  before  the  world.  The 
fireside  goodnesses  of  the  majority  are  to  be 


276  SOME    MEMORIES    OF   PARIS. 

seen,  almost  in  the  same  forms,  in  any  other 
country;  but  the  fertile  arts  and  the  sparkling 
devices  of  the  minority  are  special  to  Paris : 
they  cannot  be  found  outside  it  ;  and,  even 
there,  they  are  utterly  exceptional.  But,  scarce 
though  they  be,  they  constitute,  all  by  them- 
selves, the  most  striking  elements  of  indoor  life, 
for  they  alone  bring  into  evidence  the  processes 
employed  by  the  higher  Paris  woman. 

By  the  "higher  Paris  woman"  I  do  not  mean 
the  woman  of  the  higher  classes  only,  but  the 
woman  of  the  higher  capacities,  whatever  be 
her  class,  provided  only  she  applies  them.  It 
is  essential  to  insist  on  this,  for  in  Paris  capac- 
ity does  not  necessarily  follow  class.  It  is,  of 
course,  more  frequent  amongst  the  well-born, 
because  of  their  advantages  of  heredity,  of 
training,  and  of  models :  but  birth  alone  can- 
not bestow  it ;  it  is  to  be  found  in  every 
educated  layer  ;  like  adaptability,  it  may  be 
discovered  anywhere.  Capacity,  in  the  sense 
I  have  in  view,  may  be  denned,  roughly  and 
approximately,  as  the  power  of  creating  a 
home  to  which  everybody  is  tempted  to  come, 
and  of  reigning  in  that  home  over  all  who 
visit  it.  It  is  a  purely  social  ability,  for  it 
can  only  be  exercised  in  society  ;  but  it  is 


INDOOR   LIFE.  277 

attainable  by  any  woman  who  has  the  con- 
sciousness of  its  germ  within  her,  and  who  has, 
or  can  manufacture,  the  tools  and  the  oppor- 
tunities to  develop  it.  The  European  reputa- 
tion of  the  social  life  of  Paris  proceeds  almost 
exclusively  from  the  fitness  of  a  few  women 
in  each  group.  The  men  count  for  very  little 
— the  other  women  for  nothing  at  all.  The 
other  women  make  up  the  universal  crowd, 
with  its  universal  qualities  and  its  universal 
defects  :  they  manage  conscientiously  their  own 
little  lives,  but  they  exhibit  nothing  of  true 
French  brilliancies,  and  it  is  those  brilliancies 
alone  which  attract  the  attention  and  excite 
the  admiration  of  the  world. 

But,  alas !  the  woman  who  does  possess  the 
brilliancies  is  disappearing  rapidly;  she  is  be- 
coming almost  a  creature  of  the  past ;  which 
fact  supplies  another  motive  for  trying  to 
describe  her  while  some  patterns  of  her  still 
exist. 

And  now,  having  explained  the  situation  in 
its  main  lines,  I  can  begin  to  try  to  sketch 
such  elements  of  the  indoor  life  of  Paris  as 
seem  to  me  to  be  worth  remembering. 

It  follows  from  what  I  have  already  said  that 
that  life  is  divided  into  two  clearly  distinguish- 


278  SOME    MEMORIES   OF    PARIS. 

able  divisions — the  work  of  the  mass,  and  the 
work  of  the  minority.  In  speaking  of  the 
characteristics  of  the  mass,  it  is  difficult  to 
use  general  statements,  because  no  wording, 
however  elastic,  can  apply  to  everybody;  be- 
cause there  are  exceptions  to  every  rule ;  be- 
cause the  little  diversities  of  natures  and  of 
ways  (even  when  all  are  dominated  by  the 
same  principles  of  action)  are  endless.  All 
that  can  be  done  safely  is  to  indicate  certain 
main  features,  of  temperament  and  behaviour, 
and  to  declare  expressly  that  those  features 
are  not  universal,  and  that  no  single  picture 
can  portray  every  face. 

The  ordinary  Paris  woman,  who  makes  up 
the  mass,  is  rarely  interesting  as  a  national 
product.  There  is  seldom  anything  about  her 
that  is  markedly  different  from  the  woman  of 
elsewhere.  Occasionally  she  dresses  well ;  oc- 
casionally she  wears  her  clothes  well,  and,  in 
that  matter,  does  stand,  here  and  there,  some- 
what apart ;  occasionally  she  is  smart,  but 
much  more  often  she  is  not  smart  at  all,  and 
is  sometimes  altogether  dowdy.  When  it  was 
the  fashion  to  be  comme  il  faut,  nearly  every 
woman  did  her  best  to  reach  the  standard  ot 
the  period,  because  it  corresponded  to  her  in- 


INDOOR   LIFE.  279 

nate  idea  of  quiet.  But  now  that  strong  effects 
have  taken  the  place  of  distinction,  she  has, 
in  many  cases,  become  indifferent  and  neglects 
herself.  Superiorities  of  any  sort  are  rare  in 
her,  just  as  they  are  elsewhere.  Of  course  she 
has  local  peculiarities,  but  peculiarities  do  not 
necessarily  constitute  superiorities.  In  one  re- 
spect, however,  the  French  woman  through- 
out the  land  does  stand  high, — she  possesses, 
as  a  rule,  vigorous  home  affections :  they  are, 
indeed,  so  vigorous  that,  taking  her  class  as 
a  whole,  I  doubt  whether  the  corresponding 
women  of  any  other  race  arrive  at  the  deep 
home  tenderness  which  she  shows  and  feels. 
Her  respect  for  the  ties  and  duties  of  relation- 
ship is  carried  so  far  that,  under  its  impulsion, 
there  are  positively  (although  she  is  not  al- 
ways quite  pleased  about  it)  examples  of  three 
generations  living  permanently  together,  ap- 
parently in  harmony !  Her  attitude  towards 
her  children  is  one  of  great  love :  they  live, 
in  most  cases,  entirely  with  her,  and  constitute 
the  main  object  of  her  existence.  I  do  not 
pretend  that  the  bringing  up  which  results 
therefrom  is  the  best  in  the  world  —  that 
question  lies  outside  the  present  matter — but 
I  do  maintain  that  a  very  striking  feature  of 


280  SOME    MEMORIES   OF    PARIS. 

the  indoor  life  of  Paris,  regarded  in  its  family 
aspects,  is  the  intensity  of  the  attachment  and 
devotedness  of  the  women  to  their  parents 
and  their  children,  and  their  sympathy  for 
other  relations.  Their  husbands,  perhaps,  are 
not  invariably  included  in  this  overflowing 
sweetness.  Of  course  there  are  women  who 
care  nothing  for  either  their  children  or  any 
one  else ;  but  the  rule  is,  incontestably,  through- 
out all  ranks,  that  all  are  strangely  full  of  the 
home  tie. 

The  perception  of  family  duties  is,  indeed,  so 
keen,  as  a  general  state,  that  the  whole  race 
obtains  from  it  a  basis  for  the  construction  of 
home  happiness  in  a  solid  (though  stolid  and 
prosy)  shape,  and,  if  happiness  could  be  built 
up  with  one  material  alone,  could  reasonably 
hope  to  enjoy  a  good  deal  of  it.  Unfortu- 
nately, however,  for  everybody  else  as  well  as 
for  the  French,  such  little  happiness  as  seems 
to  exist  about  the  earth  is  derived  evidently 
from  the  joint  action  of  so  many  and  such 
composite  causes  (and  from  individual  char- 
acter even  more  than  from  any  outer  cause 
whatever),  that  one  single  faculty,  no  matter 
how  important  or  how  robust  it  may  be,  does 
not  suffice  to  beget  it.  In  the  particular  case 


INDOOR   LIFE.  281 

of  the  average  Paris  woman,  we  cannot  help 
recognising,  whenever  we  get  a  clear  sight  of 
her  indoors,  with  her  mask  off,  in  a  condition 
of  momentarily  ungilded  authenticity,  that,  not- 
withstanding the  acuteness  of  her  family  senti- 
ment, she  obtains  from  it  no  more  active 
happiness  than  falls  to  the  lot  of  her  less 
family-loving  neighbour  in  other  lands. 

If  she  extracts  distinct  contentment  from 
any  one  source,  it  is  from  a  totally  different 
one  —  from  the  consciousness  that,  with  all 
the  habitual  dulness  of  her  existence  (I  speak, 
of  course,  of  the  average  mass),  she  possesses, 
in  certain  cases,  a  handiness  proper  to  her- 
self, a  quick  perceptivity,  a  faculty  of  absorp- 
tion, appropriation,  and  reproduction  of  other 
people's  ideas,  a  capacity  for  utilising  occa- 
sions. In  this  direction  she  does  possess 
sometimes  a  national  superiority.  But  this 
most  useful  characteristic  is  very  far  from 
universal :  the  great  majority  of  Paris  women 
do  not  possess  an  atom  of  it ;  and  further- 
more, when  it  does  exist,  it  is,  in  most  of  its 
examples,  rather  mental  than  practical,  —  it 
shows  itself  in  words  rather  than  in  acts. 
For  instance,  the  women  of  the  present  day 
are  rarely  good  musicians ;  scarcely  any  of 


282  SOME    MEMORIES   OF   PARIS. 

them  can  paint,  or  sing,  or  write;  very  few 
indeed  can  cook  or  make  dresses ;  very  few 
read  much,  in  comparison  with  the  English 
or  the  Germans;  but  a  portion  of  them  can 
talk  sparklingly  of  what  they  pick  up  from 
others.  Of  this  form  of  talent  (when  she  has 
it)  the  Paris  woman  is,  with  reason,  proud ; 
and  satisfied  vanity  is  to  many  natures  —  to 
hers  in  particular  —  a  fertile  root  of  joy. 
Speaking  generally,  and  excluding  all  the 
heavy  people,  mental  handiness  may  be  said 
to  be  one  of  her  distinguishing  marks.  She 
is  enthusiastic  about  moral  qualities,  especially 
when  she  thinks  she  can  attribute  them  to 
herself;  but,  as  a  rule,  she  puts  above  them 
in  her  desires  the  capacities  of  personal  action 
which  can  aid  her  to  get  on.  Her  nature  is 
not  often  either  generous  or  liberal,  but  it 
is  occasionally  very  religious.  She  has  a 
tendency  to  attach  importance  to  small  things ; 
the  sense  of  proportion  and  of  relative  values 
is  often  weak  in  her,  —  with  the  consequence 
that  she  follows,  half  instinctively,  a  life  in 
which  trifles  play  a  large  part,  and  such 
powers  of  productive  usefulness  as  she  may 
possess  are  a  good  deal  wasted  on  unessential 
occupations.  t 


INDOOR   LIFE.  283 

Amongst  the  trading  classes,  where  the 
wives  so  often  share  the  business  work  of 
the  husbands,  there  is  sometimes  a  look  of 
real  solidity  of  purpose ;  but  it  cannot  be 
said  that  in  the  middle  and  upper  ranks, 
notwithstanding  the  abundance  of  their  gen- 
eral virtues,  there  is  much  appearance  of 
steady  earnestness.  There  is  eagerness  rather 
than  energy,  vivacity  rather  than  vigour,  rest- 
lessness rather  than  industry.  I  should  not 
like  to  say  that  the  ordinary  Paris  woman 
possesses  no  earnestness,  but  I  have  often 
asked  myself  whether,  as  a  rule,  she  really 
has  any.  The  fact  that  their  language  con- 
tains no  word  for  earnestness,  or  indeed  for 
any  of  the  forms  of  thoroughness,  does  seem 
to  suggest  that  the  French  have  no  need  of 
expressing  the  idea  which  the  word  conveys; 
though  when  they  are  told  this  they  answer 
triumphantly,  "But  we  have  serieux!"  Now 
serieux,  which  is  employed  both  as  a  substan- 
tive and  an  adjective,  does  not  in  any  way 
correspond  to  earnestness  or  earnest ;  it  im- 
plies a  certain  gravity,  a  certain  ponderosity, 
and  even,  in  many  cases,  a  certain  portentous 
solemnity.  The  state  is  common  to  the  two 
sexes,  and  to  be  thought  serieux  is  an  object 


284  SOME    MEMORIES    OF   PARIS. 

of  ambition  to  some  men  and  to  some  women. 
It  does  not  involve  knowledge,  or  labour,  or 
determination ;  but  it  does  purport  suprem- 
acy over  the  follies  of  life.  Of  course  there 
are  "  des  personnes  sericuscs,"  who  are  so  by 
natural  inclination,  and  whose  serieux  means 
merely  quietness,  correctness,  and  preference 
for  calm  duty ;  in  all  of  which,  again,  there 
is  nothing  of  what  we  understand  by  earnest- 
ness. The  absence  of  earnestness  is  not  com- 
pensated by  the  presence  of  serieux  (when  it 
is  present),  and  there  remains,  on  the  whole, 
a  worthy,  affectionate,  dutiful  life,  often  a 
little  gloomy,  sometimes  intelligent,  scarcely 
ever  intellectual, — life  like  what  it  is  anywhere 
else,  neither  more  brilliant  nor  more  pro- 
ductive, but  with  differences  of  detail. 

The  women  who  lead  this  average  life  have, 
naturally,  their  social  occupations  too,  their 
social  vanities,  and  their  struggles  after  place; 
some  of  them  possess  distinct  aptitudes  for 
the  little  battle,  and  fight  it  with  what  they 
conceive  to  be  success.  But  that  side  of  the 
subject  is  only  really  interesting  amongst  the 
minority,  to  whom  I  am  coming  in  an  instant. 

The  men  generally  (unless  they  have  fixed 
occupations)  live  the  indoor  life  of  their  families, 


INDOOR   LIFE.  285 

excepting  during  the  time  they  pass  in  the 
little  room  which  most  of  them  possess  under 
the  title  of  "  le  cabinet  de  Monsieur"  What 
they  do  in  that  little  room  I  have  never  dis- 
covered to  my  satisfaction,  though  I  have  em- 
ployed almost  half  a  century  in  searching. 
They  seem  contented,  but  they  do  not  aid 
much  to  shape  the  family  existence — that  is 
the  function  of  their  wives.  It  is  surprising 
that  men  who  exhibit  so  much  movement, 
and  even  so  much  excitement,  about  outdoor 
things,  should  be  so  passive  and  inoperative 
indoors.  There  is  nothing  to  be  said  about 
them  in  connection  with  the  subject  I  am 
discussing. 

The  material  conditions  of  the  life  of  the 
mass  are,  on  the  whole,  comfortable.  On 
many  points  there  are  sharp  differences 
between  French  arrangements  and  ours  :  there 
is  generally,  for  instance,  far  more  finish  of 
furniture  with  them,  and  somewhat  more 
finish  of  service  with  us.  The  look  of  the 
rooms  is  certainly  prettier  and  gayer  in  Paris 
than  in  London,  —  partly  because  the  walls, 
the  chairs,  the  tables,  are  more  decorative, 
and  the  colours  of  the  stuffs  and  hangings 
lighter  and  brighter;  partly  because  chintz 


286  SOME    MEMORIES   OF   PARIS. 

coverings  are  never  seen,  the  clearness  of  the 
air  allowing  everything  to  remain  unhidden. 
There  are  many  more  mirrors ;  ornaments 
lie  about  more  abundantly,  and  in  greater 
variety  of  nature  and  effect.  The  grouping 
of  the  whole  is  far  less  regular,  less  stiff,  more 
intimate.  This  advantage  is  most  marked  in 
the  drawing-rooms;  it  continues,  in  a  less  de- 
gree, in  the  bedrooms ;  there  are  traces  of  it  in 
some  of  the  dining-rooms.  But  the  setting  out 
of  the  table  is  almost  always  inferior  to  ours, 
both  in  detail  and  as  a  picture;  and  (barring 
the  great  houses)  the  servants  wait  with  less 
attention  and  less  experience.  I  speak,  of 
course,  in  the  most  general  terms  and  of  the 
broad  average,  taking  no  notice  of  the  excep- 
tions, on  either  side.  As  regards  comfort,  it 
can  scarcely  be  asserted  that  the  inhabitants 
of  either  of  the  two  countries  live  better,  on  the 
whole,  than  the  others. 

Most  Paris  women  stay  so  much  indoors 
that  their  material  surroundings  at  home  are 
of  particular  importance  to  them.  Many  of 
them  go  out  only  once  a-day,  for  an  hour  or 
two  perhaps.  The  vast  majority  have  still, 
notwithstanding  the  change  that  is  coming 
over  them,  no  outdoor  amusements.  Indeed, 


INDOOR   LIFE.  287 

viewing  amusement  as  a  serious  occupation, 
there  is  vastly  more  of  it  in  London  than  in 
Paris,  or  in  any  other  city  in  the  world.  No 
people  run  after  amusement  so  insatiably  as  the 
English  :  they  are  at  it  all  day,  in  some  form. 
The  Parisians,  on  the  contrary,  take  their 
pleasures  mainly  in  the  evening,  and  almost 
always  rest  in  peace  till  the  afternoon ;  those 
who  ride  or  do  anything  in  the  morning  are 
infinitely  few.  As  a  practice,  they  do  not  dress 
for  dinner  when  they  are  alone ;  the  mass  of 
them  give  scarcely  any  dinner-parties  to  friends 
or  acquaintances;  they  leave  them  to  the 
minority,  who  employ  them  largely ;  but,  as  a 
consequence  of  their  family  attachments,  they 
constantly  have  relatives  to  share  their  gigot. 
There  are  no  day-nurseries  for  children,  who 
live  in  the  drawing-room,  or  a  bedroom,  with 
their  mothers,  and  learn  there  to  become  little 
men  and  women.  There  are  no  old  maids, 
mainly  because  almost  every  girl  marries  young  : 
if  any  fail  to  find  a  husband  (which  happens 
rarely),  they  vanish  out  of  sight ;  unmarried 
women  over  thirty  are  scarcely  known  or  heard 
of  in  Paris ;  the  thousand  duties  to  which  they 
apply  themselves  in  England  are  left  undis- 
charged in  France.  Finally,  no  visitors  come 


288  SOME    MEMORIES    OF    PARIS. 

to  stay  in  a  Paris  house — partly  because  it  is 
not  the  custom,  partly  because  there  is  no  spare 
room,  which  is  the  better  reason  of  the  two. 

I  come  now  to  the  minority,  to  the  higher 
women,  to  something  in  the  indoor  life  of  the 
place  which  is  unlike  what  is  found  elsewhere. 
The  higher  women  differ  in  nearly  every  detail 
of  their  attitude  from  the  mass  which  I  have 
just  described — almost  as  much,  indeed,  as  art 
differs  from  nature.  Excepting  that  they  too 
are,  usually,  good  mothers,  there  is  scarcely 
anything  in  common  between  them  and  the 
others.  Just  as  the  mass  live  for  the  home, 
so  do  the  minority  live  for  the  world;  and, 
for  a  student  of  the  world  and  its  ways,  there 
is  not  to  be  discovered  a  more  perfect  type,  for 
it  is  a  product  of  the  very  highest  worldly  art, 
worked  up  with  skill,  will,  and  finish.  It  is 
all  the  more  a  product  of  pure  art  because,  as 
I  have  already  remarked,  the  higher  Paris 
woman  may  be  found  outside  the  highest 
social  class,  and  may  be  manufactured  out  of 
any  suitable  material.  The  particular  position 
which  is  created  by  birth  is  not  indispensable 
to  her:  it  bestows  a  brilliancy  the  more,  but 
that  is  all.  The  woman  of  whom  I  am  speaking 
may  be  of  any  rank,  provided  she  possesses 


INDOOR  LIFE.  289 

the  requisite  abilities,  and  provided  she  can 
gather  round  her  a  group  worthy  of  her  hand- 
ling. And  this  is  the  more  true  because,  with 
some  evident  exceptions,  social  station  in  Paris 
does  not  depend  exclusively,  or  even  mainly, 
on  the  causes  which  bestow  it  elsewhere, — on 
birth  or  name,  on  title  or  on  money :  they  all 
aid,  they  aid  largely ;  but  not  one  of  them  is 
absolutely  requisite.  Even  money,  powerful 
as  it  is,  is  less  conquering  in  Paris  than  in 
London,  as  certain  persons  have  discovered, 
who,  after  failing  to  get  recognised  to  their 
satisfaction  in  the  former  city,  have  succeeded 
in  thrusting  themselves  to  the  front  in  the 
latter.  The  Paris  woman  who  wins  position, 
even  if  she  possesses  these  four  assistants, 
owes  her  victory,  not  to  them,  but  to  herself, 
to  her  own  use  of  the  powers  within  her.  She 
merits  minute  description,  both  in  her  person 
and  her  acts.  But  here  a  difficulty  arises. 
Her  acts  can  be  set  forth  in  as  much  detail 
as  is  needed ;  but  her  person  —  and,  for  the 
results  that  she  begets,  her  person  is  as  im- 
portant as  her  acts  —  cannot  be  depicted  in 
English. 

The  reason  is,  that  the  ideas  which  dominate 
us  as  to  the  uses  to  which  our  language  ought 
T 


SOME    MEMORIES    OF   PARIS. 

to  be  applied  prevent  us  from  handling  it  freely 
on  such  a  subject.  There  are  limits  to  the 
application  of  English,  limits  which  we  have 
laid  down  for  ourselves,  limits  which  exclude  the 
possibility  of  treating  glowingly  certain  topics 
without  appearing  to  be  ridiculous.  To  speak 
of  the  feminine  delicacies  of  a  thorough  Paris 
woman,  to  show  their  influence  on  the  crowd 
around  her  and  on  the  life  she  leads,  and  to 
dissect  their  sources,  their  manifestations,  and 
their  consequences,  as  the  French  do,  would 
be  regarded  by  the  British  public  as  unworthy 
of  the  solidity  of  British  character.  So,  as  her 
person  cannot  be  faithfully  outlined  without 
French  appreciations  of  its  elegancies,  without 
employing  French  methods  of  photographic 
portraiture,  and  without  painting  in  French 
colours  the  admiration  it  inspires ;  and  as  those 
French  appreciations,  methods,  and  colourings 
would  be  regarded  as  "gushing"  in  English, 
the  person  of  the  Paris  woman  must  remain 
undrawn  by  English  pens.  The  difficulty  does 
not  proceed  from  the  English  writer,  but  from 
the  English  reader :  the  English  language  is 
as  capable  as  French  is  of  telling  the  tale  of 
winning  feminine  refinements;  but  our  feeling 
is  against  the  employment  of  it  for  such  friv- 


INDOOR   LIFE.  2QI 

olous  purposes.  We  do  not  produce  the  same 
human  works  of  art,  and  are  not  accustomed 
to  English  descriptions  of  them.  The  French 
pages  which  narrate  the  perfections  of  women, 
which  write  of  details  in  detail  and  of  graces 
with  grace,  are  read  in  France  with  eager 
interest,  because  of  the  inherent  attraction  of 
the  subject  to  the  French  mind,  and  of  the 
amazing  dexterity  and  finish  which,  from  long 
practice,  have  been  acquired  in  the  handling. 
The  story  is  so  vivid  that  we  see  and  hear 
reality,  so  seductive  that  we  bow  before  charm, 
so  adroitly  told  that  we  marvel  at  the  author's 
cunning.  Even  the  English  (a  good  many  of 
them  at  all  events)  read  all  this  in  French 
with  keen  appreciation ;  but  in  their  present 
mood  they  would  call  it  silly  in  English.  Our 
literature  loses  by  this  exclusion  —  which  ex- 
tends to  other  topics  besides  Frenchwomen — a 
quantity  of  opportunities  which  many  writers 
would,  it  may  be  presumed,  be  delighted  to 
utilise,  but  dare  not,  for  fear  of  being  scoffed 
at.  It  is  altogether  inexact  to  argue  that 
"  the  genius  of  the  French  language  " — a  much 
employed  but  nearly  meaningless  expression- 
lends  itself  to  wordings  which  cannot  be  ren- 
dered in  other  tongues;  it  is  not  genius  but 


SOME    MEMORIES   OF   PARIS. 

habit  which  explains  those  wordings.  French 
has  no  monopoly  of  the  phrases  needed  to 
delineate  personal  elegance ;  neither  has  the 
French  mind  any  exclusive  property  of  the 
sentiment  of  physical  symmetries,  or  of  the 
faculty  of  analysis  of  delicate  perceptions  and 
of  the  sensations  aroused  by  those  perceptions. 
Both  the  thinkings  and  the  wordings  would 
be  forthcoming  elsewhere,  if  only  readers 
wanted  them.  The  Belgians,  for  instance, 
who  use  French,  have  no  more  of  them  than 
we  have,  for  the  reason  that,  like  us,  they  do 
not  feel  the  need  of  them.  As  things  stand 
at  present,  the  person  of  the  higher  Parisienne 
cannot  be  depicted  diagnostically  in  English : 
that  element  of  the  subject  must  be  left  out 
here,  which  is  a  pity,  not  only  because  it  is 
the  prettiest  part  of  it,  but  also  because  the 
exclusion  lessens  the  field  of  discussion  of 
Paris  indoor  life.  Her  work  alone  remains  to 
be  talked  about. 

The  higher  Frenchwoman,  in  the  time  of 
her  full  glory,  was  essentially  a  leader  of  men : 
from  the  Fronde  downwards,  the  history  of 
France  was  full  (fuller  far  than  that  of  any 
other  land)  of  evidence  of  the  influence  of 
women  on  its  progress;  but  that  influence, 


INDOOR   LIFE.  2g3 

after  waning  steadily  since  the  Revolution, 
went  entirely  out  of  sight  with  the  solidifica- 
tion of  the  actual  republic.  After  the  war  of 
1870  it  struggled  on,  under  increasing  diffi- 
culties, until  MacMahon  resigned ;  since  his 
time  it  has  disappeared  altogether.  The 
banishment  of  the  men  of  the  well  -  born 
classes  from  all  share  in  the  government  of 
the  country  (not  only  because  they  are  Con- 
servatives, but  even  more  because  others  want 
the  places  which,  for  the  greater  part,  they 
formerly  occupied)  has  necessarily  brought 
about  the  repudiation  of  the  women  too ;  and 
such  of  them  as  are  not  well  -  born  suffer  in 
sympathy,  for  their  cause  is  common.  The 
republicans  avow  that  "la  republique  manque 
de  femmes,"  but  it  will  never  win  the  higher 
women  to  it  until,  amongst  other  things,  it 
makes  a  place  for  them  to  work.  At  present 
they  are  entirely  shut  away  from  contact  with 
the  public  life  of  France;  they  have  lost  all 
empire  over  the  events  of  the  time,  and,  in 
consequence,  they  themselves  have  weakened. 
It  would  be  inexact  to  call  them  politicians, 
in  the  English  sense  of  the  word ;  but  they 
are  animated  by  a  need  of  personal  perform- 
ance and  productivity  which  cannot  be  satis- 


294  SOME    MEMORIES   OF    PARIS. 

fied  without  dabbling,  from  however  far  off, 
in  current  affairs.  Their  intelligence  has 
always  sought  for  spheres  of  action ;  but 
Liberty,  Equality,  Fraternity — "  un  songe  entre 
deux  mensonges "  —  have  now  suppressed  all 
spheres  of  action  for  them  outside  the  walls 
of  their  drawing-rooms.  The  so-called  govern- 
ing classes,  to  which,  directly  or  indirectly, 
a  good  many  of  them  belonged,  are  replaced 
by  the  nouvelles  couches;  the  overthrow  of  the 
classes  as  national  instruments  has  entailed 
the  overthrow  of  the  women  as  a  national 
force,  and  has  reduced  them  to  a  purely 
social  function,  which  gives  insufficient  play 
to  their  aspirations,  and  thrusts  them  back 
into  themselves.  The  rupture  between  society 
and  the  republic  is  complete,  and,  apparently, 
unmendable.  Both  lose  by  it ;  but  society 
loses  the  most,  because,  though  the  republic 
can  prosper  ruggedly  without  society,  the 
women  of  society  (whatever  be  their  birth) 
cannot  breathe  healthily  without  the  position 
and  the  occupation  which  they  formerly  ob- 
tained from  contact  with  authority. 

This  decline  affects  them  individually  as  well 
as  collectively,  and  because  of  it  (amongst  other 
causes)  they  no  longer  present  the  very  marked 


INDOOR   LIFE.  2Q5 

national  lineaments  which  once  belonged  to 
them.  There  is  still  something  to  tell,  both 
of  their  cleverness  and  of  their  attractiveness ; 
but,  while  the  proportion  of  attractiveness 
remains  considerable,  the  proportion  of  clever- 
ness has  largely  diminished.  As  it  was,  in 
great  part,  by  cleverness  actively  employed 
— effective,  operative,  prolific  cleverness — that 
the  foremost  Paris  women  won  the  bright 
place  they  once  held  before  Europe,  it  is  evi- 
dent that  the  lessening  of  that  cleverness 
renders  them  less  instructive  to  study.  And 
they  themselves,  some  of  them  at  least,  are 
at  this  moment,  in  other  directions,  wilfully 
damaging  their  attractiveness  too,  by  leaping 
into  the  wave  of  masculinity  which  the  English 
have  set  surging,  and  by  allowing  their  infinite 
femininity  of  other  days  to  be  drowned  by  it. 
Many  of  them  have  taken  up  and,  with  the 
ardour  of  neophytes,  have  already  surpassed 
us  in,  the  most  conspicuous  of  the  new  exer- 
cises which,  under  pretext  of  physical  de- 
velopment, English  women  have  invented. 
If  size  is  to  become  the  chief  ambition  of 
women,  if  the  merits  of  girls  and  wives  are 
to  be  measured  by  length,  we  ought  to  ask 
the  Germans  and  the  Swedes  how  they  man- 


SOME    MEMORIES   OF   PARIS. 

age  to  produce  giants.  They  have  plenty  of 
women  six  feet  high,  feminine  and  gentle  in 
their  way,  who  could  not  distinguish  between 
a  golf -club  and  a  billiard -cue,  or  between  a 
racquet  and  a  battledore,  and  who,  though 
they  may  have  had  in  their  childhood  some 
moderate  practice  of  gymnastics,  have  never 
given  an  hour  to  rude  games,  to  riding  on  a 
bicycle,  or  to  any  of  the  recent  forms  of 
romping.  It  is  possible  that,  some  day, 
women  will  once  more  become  desirous  to 
remain  women;  but,  for  the  moment,  the 
example  offered  by  the  English  is  unfemin- 
ising  France,  and  that  effect,  in  addition  to 
political  enfeeblement,  renders  many  of  the 
Paris  women  of  to-day  different  indeed  from 
what  they  used  to  be.  Yet,  in  some  of  their 
examples,  they  retain  a  portion  of  their  former 
selves,  and  continue  to  be  something  else  than 
others  are.  They  are  changed,  lamentably 
changed,  as  a  general  type;  but  memorials 
of  their  former  merit  are  still  discoverable. 

Manner,  movement,  dress,  and  talk  are  the 
weapons  of  the  higher  Paris  woman  who  con- 
tinues to  be  exclusively  a  woman.  She  employs 
them  all  in  her  relations  with  the  world,  on  her 
day,  at  her  dinners,  at  her  parties.  On  her 


INDOOR  LIFE.  2Q7 

day  a  mob  may  come  to  her,  because  her  door 
is  open  to  her  entire  acquaintance ;  but,  unless 
she  is  a  personage,  her  dinners  and  her  parties 
are  usually  kept  small.  A  view  of  her  on  her 
day  is  interesting,  perhaps  the  most  interesting 
feminine,  spectacle  in  Paris,  for  she  shows  more 
of  her  varied  skill  on  that  occasion  than  on  any 
other.  She  has  to  be  everything  to  everybody 
at  once ;  to  graduate  her  welcomes  ;  to  measure 
her  smiles ;  to  give  their  full  rights  of  greeting 
and  of  place  to  all  her  visitors,  but  no  more 
than  the  right  of  each ;  and,  above  all,  not- 
withstanding this  calculated  adjustment,  to  send 
everybody  away  with  the  conviction  that  they, 
in  particular,  were  the  very  persons  she  most 
wished  to  see.  The  power  of  listening  is,  in 
such  a  case,  almost  more  important  than  the 
power  of  speaking,  for  there  is  no  flattery  so 
irresistible  as  to  lead  stupid  people  to  believe 
you  are  intensely  interested  in  what  they  say. 
Towards  those  whom  she  wishes  to  impress, 
she  exhibits  herself  in  her  utmost  winningness, 
according  to  what  she  imagines  to  be  their 
accessible  sides.  To  this  one  she  throws  scin- 
tillant  talk;  she  dazzles  that  one  with  the  ele- 
gancies of  her  person ;  to  another  she  is  all  deep 
sympathy  and  tender  feeling;  of  a  fourth  she 


298  SOME    MEMORIES   OF   PARIS. 

inquires  gravely,  as  if  such  subjects  were  the 
one  study  of  her  hours,  whether  the  experiments 
in  the  liquefaction  of  carbon  are  progressing 
hopefully,  or  who  will  be  the  next  successful 
candidate  at  the  Academic.  There  is  certainly 
great  labour  in  the  process :  the  tension  of  the 
mind  is  augmented  by  the  longing  for  success, 
and  by  unceasing  attention  to  physical  effect 
as  an  essential  aid  to  that  success.  But,  to  a 
thorough  woman  of  the  world,  conceive  the 
delights  of  success  !  What  must  she  feel  when 
her  last  visitor  has  left, — when  she  looks  back 
over  the  four  hours  she  has  just  passed,  and 
tells  herself  that  every  one  has  been  conquered 
by  her,  and  has  carried  away  a  deep  impression 
of  her  charm  ?  The  scene  can  be  beheld  in 
Paris  only,  —  at  least  I  have  not  discerned  it 
in  the  same  perfection  in  any  other  society: 
it  is  far  away  the  most  special  picture  of  its 
indoor  life ;  it  shows  the  typical  Frenchwoman 
in  her  most  finished  development,  which  no  one 
else  can  attain.  But  how  rare  it  is ! 

At  dinner  her  doings  are  equally  complete, 
but  not  the  same.  She  is  differently  dressed. 
She  is  "en  peau"  (I  mention,  for  those  who 
may  not  be  aware  of  it,  that  this  is  the  modern 
expression  for  decolletee) ;  and  with  the  change 


INDOOR    LIFE.  2QQ 

of  covering  comes  change  of  bearing,  for  the 
perfect  Paris  woman  has  a  bearing  for  every 
gown.  Just  as  the  nature  of  the  dress  itself 
indicates  its  purpose,  its  meaning,  and  the  hour 
at  which  it  is  to  be  worn,  so  does  she  herself 
associate  her  ways  with  that  meaning.  The 
movements  of  her  bare  shoulders  and  bare  arms 
at  dinner  are  not  identical  with  the  movements 
of  the  morning  or  the  afternoon  in  a  high  cor- 
sage and  long  sleeves.  They  have  another  story 
to  relate,  another  effect  to  produce,  other  duties 
to  discharge ;  her  measurement  of  their  value 
and  their  functions  is  quite  different.  The  action 
of  the  hands,  again,  is  in  full  view;  their  lan- 
guage can  be  spoken  out ;  their  eloquence  can 
exercise  its  completest  force ;  she  talks  with 
them  as  with  her  tongue.  In  pleased  conscious- 
ness of  her  delightfulness  she  sits  in  the  centre 
of  her  table,  casts  her  glances  and  her  words 
around  her,  undulates  with  varied  gesture,  and 
is  again,  in  thorough  meaning  and  result,  the 
typical  Parisienne. 

And  yet,  by  one  of  the  contradictions  with 
which  the  entire  subject  is  piled  up,  she  is 
unable  to  bestow  immortality  on  the  memory 
of  her  dinners.  That  memory  disappears,  for, 
incomprehensible  though  it  be,  there  is  nothing 


300  SOME    MEMORIES   OF   PARIS. 

which  mankind  in  its  thanklessness  forgets  like 
dinners :  there  is  nothing  which  in  gratitude 
we  ought  to  remember  more;  there  is  nothing 
which  in  reality  we  remember  less.  This  fact  of 
the  utter  fading  away  of  dinners  is  a  puzzle  to  all 
people  who  have  passed  their  lives  in  dining, 
with  full  recognition  of  the  superlative  impor- 
tance of  the  process.  Scarcely  any  of  them 
recollect  anything  precise  about  the  thousand 
banquets  at  which  they  have  filled  a  place. 
They  agree,  generally,  that  they  have  entirely 
forgotten  what  they  have  eaten,  that  they  have 
almost  forgotten  what  they  have  seen,  that  they 
have  the  feeblest  consciousness  of  the  people 
they  have  met,  and  that  their  only  relatively 
clear  remembrance  is  of  the  bright  talk  they 
have  heard  occasionally  at  table.  The  ear  is 
the  only  organ  which  retains  really  lasting  im- 
pressions ;  the  tongue  preserves  nothing,  and 
the  eye  scarcely  anything.  I  believe  that,  with 
the  exception  of  a  few  professional  gourmets  (a 
class  that  is  becoming  everywhere  more  and 
more  rare),  this  is  the  condition  of  mind  of 
nearly  everybody  who  is  in  a  position  to  form 
an  opinion  on  the  subject.  One  of  my  acquain- 
tances, who  dined  diversifiedly  about  Europe, 
became  so  convinced  in  early  life  that  dinners 


INDOOR   LIFE.  3OI 

are  inevitably  forgotten,  that  he  preserved  from 
his  outset  the  menus  and  lists  of  guests,  with 
the  placing  at  table,  of  all  the  repasts  at  which 
he  assisted.  When  I  saw  his  collection  it  had 
grown  into  several  folio  volumes.  The  entries 
in  it  were  made  with  such  precision,  that,  dis- 
covering in  it  one  of  my  own  cards  with  a  date 
on  it,  and  asking  what  it  signified,  I  was  told 
by  my  acquaintance  that  its  object  was  to  regis- 
ter the  fact  that  he  had  dined  with  me  alone 
on  the  day  indicated.  He,  at  all  events,  had 
succeeded  in  preventing  himself  from  falling  into 
the  universal  oblivion  :  he  considered,  probably 
with  truth,  that  he  was  the  only  man  in  Euro- 
pean society  who  was  animated  by  the  real 
reconnaissance  de  I'estomac,  and  who  could  recon- 
stitute, with  becoming  thankfulness  and  cer- 
tainty, the  details  of  every  dinner  he  had  eaten. 
At  the  actual  moment  of  dinner  we  feel,  of 
course,  a  more  or  less  keen  perception  of  the 
merits  or  demerits  of  the  feast.  But  the  per- 
ception does  not  endure :  even  bad  and  gloomy 
dinners  are  forgotten,  just  as  thoroughly  as 
good  and  gay  ones.  The  explanation  is,  it 
seems  to  me,  that  we  dine  too  often ;  one  din- 
ner drives  out  the  effect  of  another.  If  we  had 
only  one  dinner  in  our  lives,  how  we  should 


302  SOME    MEMORIES    OF    PARIS. 

remember  it !  Of  the  four  great  elements  of 
dinners — food,  people,  spectacle,  and  talk — the 
talk  alone,  as  I  have  already  observed,  dwells 
on,  in  some  degree,  in  our  thoughts.  No  one 
can  fail  to  recognise  that  cookery  is  valueless 
as  a  permanent  cause  of  memory  of  dinners : 
it  has  but  a  merely  momentary  effect ;  it  does 
not  merit  the  front  place  it  is  too  commonly 
supposed  to  occupy  in  the  general  constitution 
of  a  repast ;  it  stands,  on  the  contrary,  last 
in  durability  amongst  the  four  constituents. 
Scarcely  any  of  the  older  students  of  dining 
persist  in  giving  serious  thought  to  food,  partly 
because  of  weakening  digestions,  mainly  because 
they  have  learnt  from  long  practice  that  the  real 
pleasure  of  a  dinner  is  derived  from  another 
source.  They  see  in  it  not  an  occasion  for 
eating,  but  a  most  ingenious  and  soul-contenting 
arrangement  for  bringing  men  and  women  in- 
timately together  under  conditions  which  supply 
many  stimulants  and  brightnesses — an  arrange- 
ment which  enables  them  to  show  themselves 
at  their  best,  and  which  terminates  the  day 
with  lustre,  like  a  luminous  sunset. 

Now,  talk  at  dinner — the  one  enduring  ele- 
ment of  the  ceremony  —  can  never  reach  its 
full  radiance  without  women :  and  here  comes 


INDOOR   LIFE.  303 

in  the  application  of  these  considerations  to 
the  Parisienne,  for  it  is  her  talk  which  raises 
dinner  to  the  high  place  it  occupies  in  Paris. 
'A  womanless  dinner  may  not  be  quite  so  dis- 
mal as  a  night  without  stars,  or  a  desert  with- 
out water ;  but  it  may  fairly  be  compared  to  a 
tree  without  leaves,  to  a  sea  without  ships,  or 
to  a  meadow  without  buttercups.  Somewhere 
in  the  sixties  I  dined  with  M.  Emile  de  Girar- 
din  (I  name  him  because  he  was  a  public  man), 
in  that  admirable  house  in  the  Rue  Pauquet 
which  he  called  his  "thatched  hut."  He  was 
famous  for  his  dinners,  and  on  the  occasion 
to  which  I  refer  the  cookery  was  supreme — 
so  supreme  indeed  that  I  told  myself  at  the 
time  I  had  never  partaken  of  such  a  dinner : 
that  shapeless  fact  is  still  in  my  memory;  but 
what  there  was  to  eat,  or  who  was  there,  I 
have  utterly  forgotten.  I  know  only  it  was  a 
dinner  of  men  —  that  is  to  say,  not  a  dinner 
at  all  in  the  great  social  meaning  of  the  term. 
Women  and  talk  alone  make  dinner,  especially 
in  Paris,  where  the  value  of  the  women  and 
the  talk  reaches  its  highest  possibilities.  If 
we  forget  all  about  it  as  soon  as  it  is  over, 
that  is  not  the  fault  of  the  Parisiennes;  they, 
at  all  events,  have  done  their  utmost  to  induce 


304  SOME    MEMORIES    OF    PARIS. 

us  to  remember.  Certain  Paris  dinners  pro- 
vide, probably,  a  more  complete  supply  of 
social  satisfaction  than  can  be  extracted  from 
any  other  single  source.  They  give  us  what 
we  want  at  the  moment  in  its  best  conceiv- 
able form,  with  all  the  components  and  sur- 
roundings that  can  furnish  outside  assistance. 
Of  course  dinners  are  more  or  less  alike  every- 
where ;  of  course  the  foundations  and  the 
general  nature  of  the  structure  reared  upon 
them  cannot  vary  widely;  but  in  the  double 
sensation  of  serenity  and  complacency  on  the 
one  hand,  and  of  inspiring  allurement  on  the 
other,  Paris  possesses  in  a  few  houses  an 
atmosphere  which  cannot  be  breathed  any- 
where else,  and  which  constitutes  a  true  inter- 
national distinction. 

It  is  possible  that,  to  the  inexperienced  eye, 
the  charm  of  this  would  not  be  as  evident  as 
it  becomes  on  intimate  knowledge  of  it.  We 
like  best  what  we  are  most  accustomed  to ; 
strange  ways  rarely  please  us  at  first  —  the 
habit  of  them  needs  to  be  formed  before  we 
can  appreciate  them.  There  is  an  involuntary 
shrinking  from  the  new  and  the  unknown ;  it 
is  only  after  time  and  usage  that,  in  most 
cases,  we  become  fit  to  comprehend  the  merit 


INDOOR   LIFE.  305 

of  practices  that  we  were  not  brought  up  to 
admire.  But  when  habit  has  had  opportunity 
to  grow,  when  experience  has  enabled  us  to 
base  our  judgments  on  long  comparison,  then, 
at  last,  we  recognise  excellences  which  do  not 
strike  new  -  comers.  I  insist  particularly  on 
this  consideration,  because  it  explains  not  only 
the  source  of  the  opinions  I  hold,  but  also  one 
of  the  reasons  why  others  may  differ  from 
those  opinions. 

A  Paris  evening-party  is  nearly  the  same  pro- 
cess as  a  "  day " — in  other  clothes,  and  with 
more  facility  for  walking  about.  There  is  noth- 
ing to  be  said  of  it  that  I  have  not  said  already. 
I  will,  however,  mention  one  recollection  that 
has  a  relation  to  its  aspects.  The  first  time 
I  was  present  at  a  ball  in  Paris,  I  was  struck 
by  the  singular  freshness  of  the  colours  of  the 
dresses,  after  the  tints  I  had  known  in  England  : 
it  was  not  the  making  of  the  dresses  that  I 
noticed,  but  their  shades,  which  had  a  bloom 
that  astonished  me.  I  soon  lost,  from  con- 
stant view,  the  power  of  comparing;  but  at 
first,  before  my  eyes  had  become  trained,  it 
seemed  to  me  that  even  the  whites  were 
whiter,  brighter,  more  intense  than  any  I  had 
seen  before,  while  all  the  other  hues  looked 
u 


306  SOME    MEMORIES   OF    PARIS. 

more  transparent  and  more  living.  I  make 
no  attempt  to  explain  the  impression  I  re- 
ceived, but  of  its  reality  I  am  certain. 
Whether  the  distinction  still  endures  I  can- 
not say  (new  arrivers  alone  could  now  judge 
of  that) ;  but  at  the  moment,  while  the  sense 
of  it  lasted,  it  served  to  mark  a  visible  differ- 
ence between  the  balls  of  Paris  and  of  Lon- 
don. In  all  else,  save  some  few  unimportant 
contrasts  of  manners  and  of  details,  evening- 
parties  have  seemed  to  me  about  the  same 
everywhere,  and  I  can  think  of  nothing  about 
them  that  is  really  proper  to  Paris.  The 
women  exercise  at  them  an  attraction  on  the 
people  round  which  is  more  general  and  less 
individual  than  at  dinners :  there  is  space ; 
the  spectators  are  far  more  numerous ;  the 
women  are  more  completely  seen;  but,  all  the 
same,  they  dominate  less.  I  have  always 
fancied  that,  for  this  reason,  the  true  Paris 
woman  is  somewhat  wasted  at  an  evening- 
party  ;  she  is  too  much  in  the  crowd ;  she 
may  be  admired,  but  she  does  not  always 
rule.  Her  one  advantage  at  night  receptions 
is  that  she  can  stand  and  walk  about,  and 
can  produce  effects  of  motion  which  are 
denied  to  her  at  dinner. 


INDOOR   LIFE.  307 

This  sort  of  life  in  Paris  is  not,  after  all, 
more  worldly  than  the  same  existence  is  else- 
where. Wherever  amusement  is  lifted  to  the 
position  of  the  first  object  of  existence,  the 
moral  effect  on  those  who  pursue  it  is  virtu- 
ally the  same:  there  may  be  shades  of  local 
difference,  but  the  tendency  of  the  mind 
grows  everywhere  alike.  It  would  therefore 
be  unfair  to  attribute  any  special  frivolity  to 
Paris  because  small  sections  of  its  society 
achieve  extreme  brilliancy  of  worldliness ; 
just  as  it  would  be  unfair  to  praise  it  speci- 
ally because  other  classes  are  particularly 
worthy  of  esteem.  In  the  universal  average 
of  good  and  bad,  Paris  stands  on  the  same 
general  level  as  other  capitals ;  but  in  glisten- 
ing pleasantness  it  rises,  here  and  there,  above 
them  all.  The  reason  is  that  the  higher  Paris 
women  possess  usually  both  intelligence  and 
elegance,  the  two  qualities  which  society  speci- 
ally requires,  which  axe  rarely  found  together 
elsewhere  (at  all  events  in  the  same  proportions 
and  with  the  same  effects),  and  the  union  of 
which  has  won  for  the  best  examples  of  Paris- 
iennes  the  world  wide  reputation  they  have 
enjoyed.  Their  superiority  still  exists,  but  how 
long  it  will  continue  to  endure  remains  to  be 


308  SOME    MEMORIES    OF   PARIS. 

seen :  it  is  weakening  fast  from  the  progres- 
sive disappearance  of  the  women  who,  thus 
far,  have  maintained  it.  If  it  does  vanish 
altogether,  Paris  will  become  like  any  other 
place,  with  the  same  respectabilities  and  the 
same  dulnesses ;  but  its  indoor  life  will  have 
left  behind  it  a  history  and  a  memory  proper 
to  itself,  and  some  day,  perhaps,  its  women  will 
wake  up  again  and  will  reassume  the  feminine 
graces,  the  feminine  capacities,  and,  above  all, 
the  true  feminine  intelligence  which  were  so 
delightfully  distinctive  of  their  mothers. 

That  they  may  recover  fully  those  graces, 
those  capacities,  and  that  intelligence,  is  one 
of  the  earnest  wishes  I  offer  to  a  race  amongst 
which  I  no  longer  live,  but  to  which  I  owe 
many  of  the  happinesses  and  most  of  the 
brightnesses  of  my  life,  and  towards  which, 
until  my  thoughts  cease,  I  shall  feel  deep  and 
solidly  founded  gratitude. 


THE    END. 


BUCKRAM   SERIES. 

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By  COXOVER  DUFF.     Two  Tales,  told  in  letters. 
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ingly interesting." — Atlantic  Monthly. 

His  theory  of  the  decline  of  man  and  the  old  age  of  the  world  is  extremely  strong 
and  original ;  .  .  .  the  attention  flags  never  a  moment." — The  Churchman. 

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"There  is  only  one  fault  to  find,  and  that  is  there  is  not  enough  of  it." — New 
York  Times. 

SECOND    EDITION   OF 

JACK   O'DOON. 

A  Romance  of  the  North  Carolina  Coast.     By  MARIA  BEALE. 

"  There  is  a  maturity  of  conception,  an  accuracy  of  artistic  perception,  not  often 
noticed  in  an  author's  first  novel.  .  .  .  The  landscapes  are  as  faithfully  definite  as 
any  artist  could  make  them.  .  .  .  There  is  a  great  deal  of  vigor  in  the  character- 
ization, and  no  little  humor,  while  the  conversation  is  straightforward  and  natural. 
.  .  .  Too  much  praise  can  harJly  be  given  to  the  management  of  -he  tragic  close  of 
the  book;  .  .  .  very  carefully  as  well  as  finely  related  ;  .  .  .  the  tale  ends  precisely 
where  it  should,  and  this  is  not  one  of  the  least  of  the  several  excellences  of  this 
delightful  story." — Boston  Transcript. 

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A   Novel  of  New    York  Politics. 
Fifth  Edition  of 

THE  HON.  PETER  STIRLING 

And  what  people   thought  of  him.    By  Paul 
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The  Nation  :  "  Floods  of  light  on  the  raison  d'etre,  origin,  and  methods  of  the  dark 
figure  that  directs  the  destinies  of  our  cities.  .  .  So  strongly  imagined  and  logically  drawn 
that  it  satisfies  the  demand  for  the  appearance  of  truth  in  art.  .  .  Telling  scenes  and  inci- 
dents and  descriptions  of  political  organization,  all  of  which  are  literal  transcripts  of  life 
and  fact — not  dry  irrelevancies  thrown  in  by  way  of  imparting  information,  but  lively 
detail,  needful  for  a  clear  understanding  of  Stirling's  progress  from  the  humble  chairman- 
ship of  a  primary  to  the  dictator's  throne.  .  .  In  the  use  of  dramatic  possibilities,  Mr. 
Ford  is  discreet  and  natural,  and  without  giving  Stirling  a  heroic  pose,  manages  to  win  for 
him  very  hearty  sympathy  and  belief.  Stirling's  private  and  domestic  story  is  well  knit 
with  that  of  his  public  adventures.  .  .  A  very  good  novel." 

The  Atlantic  Monthly^:  "Commands  our  very  sincere  respect  .  .  there  is  no  glar- 
ing improbability  about  his  story  .  .  .  the  highly  dramatic  crisis  of  the  story.  .  .  The 
tone  and  manner  of  the  book  are  noble.  .  .  A  timely,  manly,  thoroughbred,  and  eminently 
suggestive  book." 

The  Review  of  Reviews  :  "  His  relations  with  women  were  of  unconventional  sincerity 
and  depth.  .  .  Worth  reading  on  several  accounts." 

The  Dial :  "  One  of  the  strongest  and  most  vital  characters  that  have  appeared  in  our 
fiction.  .  .  A  very  charming  love  story.  To  discern  the  soul  of  good  in  so  evil  a  thing  as 
Municipal  politics  calls  for  sympathies  that  are  not  often  united  with  a  sane  ethical  out- 
look ;  but  Peter  Stirling  is  possessed  of  the  one  without  losing  his  sense  of  the  other,  and 
it  is  this  combination  of  qualities  that  make  him  so  impressive  and  admirable  a  figure.  .  . 
Both  a  readable  and  an  ethically  helpful  book." 

The  New  York  Tribune :  *'  A  portrait  which  is  both  alive  and  easily  recognizable." 
New  York  Times  :  "  Mr.  Ford's  able  political  novel." 

The  Literary  World:  "A  fine,  tender  love  story.  .  .  A  very  unusual,  but,  let  us 
believe,  a  possible  character.  .  .  Peter  Stirling  is  a  man's  hero.  .  .  Very  readable  and 
enjoyable." 

The  Independent :  "  Full  of  life.  The  interest  never  flags.  .  .  It  is  long  since  we  have 
read  a  better  novel  or  one  more  thoroughly  and  naturally  American." 

The  Boston  Advertiser  :  "  Sure  to  excite  attention  and  win  popularity." 

The  Brooklyn  Eagle:  "A  love  and  labor  story  .  .  .  terribly  picturesque.  .  .  Abun- 
dance of  humor." 

The  Baltimore  Sun  :  "  The  team  of  politics  and  love  drive  very  well  together.  .  . 
Mr.  Ford  has  created  a  very  effective  character  under  very  difficult  circumstances." 

The  Springfield  Republican:  "A  plain,  old-fashioned  story  of  a  man  with  a 
conscience." 

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interest." 

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THE  PRISONER  OF  ZENDA.  im  Edition. 

"A  glorious  story,  which  cannot  be  too  warmly  recommended  to  all  who  love  a 
tale  that  stirs  the  blood.  Perhaps  not  the  least  among  its  many  good  qualities  is  the 
fact  that  its  chivalry  is  of  the  nineteenth,  not  of  the  sixteenth,  century;  that  it  is  a  tale 
of  brave  men  and  true,  and  of  a  fair  woman  of  to-day.  The  Englishman  who  saves  the 
king  ...  is  as  interesting  a  knight  as  was  Bayard.  .  .  The  story  holds  the 
readers  attention  from  first  to  last." — Critic. 

A  MAN  OF  MARK.  $th  Edition. 

"More  plentifully  charged  with  humor,  and  the  plot  is  every  whit  as  original  as 
that  of  Zenda  .  .  .  returns  to  the  entrancing  manner  of  '  The  Prisoner  of  Zenda.' 
.  .  .  The  whole  game  of  playing  at  revolution  is  pictured  with  such  nearness  and 
intimacy  of  view  that  the  wildest  things  happen  as  though  they  were  every-day 
occurrences.  .  .  Two  triumphs  of  picturesque  description — the  overthrow  and  escape 
of  the  President,  an4  the  night  attack  on  the  bank.  The  charmingly  wicked  Christina 
is  equal  to  anything  that  Mr.  Hope  has  done,  with  the  possible  exception  of  the  always 
piquant  Dolly." — Life. 

THE  INDISCRETION  OF  THE  DUCHESS.      1th  Edition. 

"  Told  with  an  old-time  air  of  romance  that  gives  the  fascination  of  an  earlier  day; 
an  air  of  good  faith,  almost  of  religious  chivalry,  gives  reality  to  their  extravagance. 
.  .  .  Marks  Mr.  Hope  as  a  wit,  if  he  were  not  a  romancer." — Nation. 

THE  DOLLY  DIALOGUES.  6th  Edition. 

"  Characterized  by  a  delicious  drollery_ ;  .  .  .  beneath  the  surface  play  of  words 
lies  a  tragi-comedy  of  life.  .  .  There  is  infinite  suggestion  in  every  line." — Boston 
Transcript. 

A  CHANGE  OF  AIR.  KA  Edition. 

With  portrait  and  notice  of  the  author. 

"A  highly  clever  performance,  with  little  touches  that  recall  both  Balzac  and 
Meredith.  .  .  Is  endowed  with  exceeding  originality." — New  York  Times. 

SPORT  ROYAL.  Zd  Edition. 

"  His  many  admirers  will  be  happy  to  find  in  these  stories  full  evidence  that 
Anthony  Hope  can  write  short  stories  fully  as  dramatic  in  incident  as  his  popular 
novels.'  —Philadelphia.  Call. 


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"  Will  remain  in  the  memory  long  after  the  volume  is  closed.  .  .  .  Two  stories 
that  stand  pre-eminent  for  beauty  and  depth  of  feeling  are  'Not  Yet'  and  'Threw 
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pictures  of  Cockney  life  is  their  unlikeness  to  the  sketches  of  Dickens  or  any  of  the 
other  countless  writers  who  have  graphically  treated  of  the  same  subject.  They  are 
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